Women's tennis looks to rebound, Men in Los Angeles

The fifth-ranked Arizona women's tennis team opened the Pacific 10 Conference with two home losses against the Northern California teams. This weekend the team hopes it can blow away California's winning trend when they host Southern Cal and UCLA.

Arizona (3-2 overall, 0-2 in the Pac-10) won all four matches to both the Trojans and Bruins last season.

"When we played California and Stanford the matches were so close that it was just a matter of a couple points," said Karen Goldstein, a sophomore. "We've been really fine-tuning the little things during our break and are all ready for these matches."

The Wildcats play Southern Cal today at 1:30 p.m. and the Bruins at 11 a.m. tomorrow. Both matches are at Robson.

"I expect both matches to be very tough," head coach Becky Bell said. "We really need to be ready to come out and play from start to finish."

The nineteenth-ranked Trojans (2-2, 0-0) are coming off a 8-1 victory over Loyola Marymount on Tuesday.

UCLA (1-1, 1-0) suffered a narrow 5-4 defeat to eighth-ranked Pepperdine on February 4 in their last dual match.

The Wildcats have not played a dual match since their 6-3 loss to the Golden Bears on February 1. They were supposed to battle Arizona State on Tuesday but the match was cancelled due to rain. Despite a nearly two week layoff, Arizona does not think the time off will hamper them.

"We took the opportunity to work really hard in practice so I'm not worried about the break at all," said Goldstein, the 32nd-ranked player in the country.

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The seventeenth-ranked men's tennis team hopes it returns to Arizona Saturday night with at least one school record broken.

The Wildcats are playing in Los Angeles against UCLA Friday and Southern Cal on Saturday. The Wildcats (3-0, 0-0) have never beat either of these schools since they entered the Six-Pac in 1978.

"I can't remember beating them," said head coach Bill Wright, who is in his eleventh season at Arizona. "At least not in my lifetime."

The Wildcats came close to opening the record books last season when UCLA narrowly defeated them 4-3 in Tucson on March 8.

"We've played them very well in the past few years but these matches will be very tough and (our success) will just depend on how well we match up with their guys this time," Wright said.

The matches this weekend mark the opening of the Six-Pac season for all three teams.

"I think we're ready to begin the conference but I don't think we're as good as we're going to be in a couple of weeks," Wright said.

The Bruins (6-1, 0-0) are fresh off a 7-0 sweep over University of California-Santa Barbara on Tuesday.

Senior Henrik Wagner is playing the Wildcats top seed again this weekend. Wagner, who is 1-1 on court one since replacing senior Tom Haugland on February 7, will match up with undefeated Bruin Eric Taino.

Southern Cal (3-1, 0-0) prove to be a difficult match for Arizona as well. In the Trojans last match, they had little trouble when they defeated University of California-Irvine 6-1 on Wednesday.

"It's just that somehow we always seem to lose," junior Mike Mackay said. "We always feel like we can go in there and win but it just hasn't happened yet."