(Photo: Patricia Vicente/ WCSN)
No. 27 Arizona State is on the road to Southern California this weekend to close out the regular season against the two Pac-12 programs leading it in the standings, No. 14 UCLA and No. 10 USC.
Riding a six-match win streak, ASU (13-10, 4-2 Pac-12) remains undefeated in the month of April, only allowing one point over its last five home matches to Grand Canyon. It has allowed three points total across its last six wins.
“We’ve got some momentum and we’re playing with confidence,” coach Matt Hill said. “We didn’t have a nice stretch of matches to get our feet under us early in the season and now I feel like we’re getting that and seeing that in matches.”
Not only is the team playing well overall, but individually seven Sun Devils carry a win streak of two or more into singles play this weekend. That group is led by graduate student Justin Roberts, who holds a six-match winning streak of his own into the final two regular season matches of his ASU career. The Sun Devils also feature one player in the Oracle/ITA rankings with junior Nathan Ponwith at No. 75.
Aside from singles play, the Sun Devils continue to electrify with their doubles play, having clinched seven straight match-opening points — a key component that provides early confidence. ASU has won 17 total doubles points across 23 total matches and will look for continued success against nationally ranked tandems that reside in Los Angeles.
The Sun Devils currently send out the No. 11 ranked duo in the nation. Ponwith and junior partner Dominik Kellovsky fell from No. 8 in the latest rankings, but still are the highest ranked ASU doubles tandem in the program’s history since Brian Gyetko and Dave Lomicky in 1991.
“We’ve felt all year long that we have a high level of trust in all courts to be able to be successful against anybody in the country,” Hill said. “They continue to show that time and time again. It gives us a ton of confidence and getting that first point against the best teams in the country is crucial.”
After last week’s win against Utah, the Sun Devils were able to sustain an unblemished 7-0 home record in their second season since the program’s reinstatement.
ASU climbed up four spots to No. 27 in the latest rankings. Seven Pac-12 teams stand in the top-50, but it faces two within the top-15 to close out the regular season on the road in No. 14 UCLA on Friday and No. 10 USC on Saturday.
UCLA (14-4, 6-0) is currently undefeated in conference play and holds an all-time 63-3 record against ASU. In last season’s matchup, the Bruins defeated the Sun Devils 4-2 in Tempe. However, one of ASU’s wins came from then-senior Michaël Geerts on court one against then-No. 1 senior Martin Redlicki.
Hill understands that these last two matches will be grueling in the City of Angels.
“UCLA is really top heavy with some really good players up top in singles and a really good one doubles as well,” Hill said. “We put ourselves in a really good position to win and we just didn’t get over the hump last year, but we were way more inexperienced then and we have way more depth this year.”
In what has been a mountain they haven’t surmounted since reinstatement, USC (15-7, 5-1) holds a 56-9 all-time record over the Sun Devils. Their last encounter resulted in a 4-0 drubbing for the Trojans in the semifinals of the BNP Paribas Open Collegiate Tennis Challenge in Indian Wells, California.
ASU faces off with UCLA on Friday at 3 p.m. MST to kick off the weekend and wraps up the regular season against USC on Saturday at 3 p.m. MST.
