Arizona’s Colton Smith continues tear with quarterfinals finish at Arizona Tennis Classic

At a time when most college seniors are making graduation plans, securing internships and sending out resumes, Arizona’s Colton Smith is gaining invaluable professional experience of his own kind.

Over the last week and a half, the Wildcats men’s tennis star has competed in two of the west coast’s top professional tournaments and held his own against some of the world’s best.

First, Smith qualified for the Indian Wells Open as an amateur, a highly impressive feat. After falling to top 50 player Alex Michelsen in the round of 64, Smith headed to Phoenix, where he competed this week at the Arizona Tennis Classic, part of the ATP Challengers Tour.

Smith beat a pair of seasoned vets at the tournament before dropping a quarterfinals match Friday to No. 36 Nuno Borges. Smith held his own against the Portuguese pro, taking in deep in each set and ultimately falling 6-4, 6-4.

In between Indian Wells and the Arizona Tennis Classic, Smith was named the Universal Tennis Foundation’s 2025 Hurd Award Champion, which comes with a $100,000 grant that goes towards his transition to becoming a professional player.

“It means the world to be recognized for such an incredible award and to have the financial help going forward is going to take so much of the stress off of me and my family,” Smith said. “I’m also super grateful for the opportunity to add another group of incredibly supportive and helpful people to my team through this award and I’m just super excited to see where this all will take me.”

As Smith showed this month, he’s already playing at a professional level.

At Indian Wells, the Tenino, Wash. native defeated three players who have been ranked in the ATP top 50, including Italy’s Fabio Fognini, a 37-year-old who has reached as high as No. 9 in the world rankings.

Smith followed that up by upsetting Roman Safiullin – a 2023 Wimbledon quarterfinalist – at the Arizona Tennis Classic.

If there’s one downside of Smith’s success, it’s that he hasn’t been able to compete with his Arizona teammates over the last two weeks. The Wildcats dropped a close match at Michigan State on Wednesday that might have gone the other way had Smith been available.

Smith should return in time for No. 10 Arizona’s anticipated match at No. 2 TCU next Friday. The match will likely feature Smith going head-to-head against TCU’s Pedro Vives, who is ranked one spot ahead of Smith in the ITA singles rankings (Vives is No. 2 and Smith is No. 3).

Less certain is whether Smith will make it to Orlando this weekend in time for Arizona’s Big 12 opener against UCF. Arizona is looking to avenge a January home loss to the Knights that kept the Wildcats out of the ITA indoor team championships.

If Smith can’t make it, he has a decent excuse.