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No. 1 Virginia secures huge win over No. 6 Florida

Virginia's doubles point takes down Florida

<p>Senior J.C. Aragone has been a part of tremendous success at Virginia. This year is no different.&nbsp;</p>

Senior J.C. Aragone has been a part of tremendous success at Virginia. This year is no different. 

The No. 1 Virginia men’s tennis team continued their strong start to the season this past weekend with an impressive victory over No. 6 Florida Saturday evening.

In front of a packed house at the Boar’s Head Sports Club in Charlottesville, the Cavaliers (4-0, 1-0 ACC) took down the Gators (6-1, 0-0 SEC) in a battle of the undefeated.

Virginia started the match on fire, nabbing the doubles point and then four singles points to clinch the match with five wins. Though there were some hiccups towards the end, the Cavaliers were still able to come away with an impressive 5-2 victory over one of the top teams in the country.

“Couple bumps in the end, but that’s good,” coach Brian Boland said. “Those guys played well from Florida at five-and-one down here, so a lot of credit to them, but overall it was a great performance for our team.”

Boland talked about what the victory means for a Virginia team that struggled against Florida last year.

“We appreciate our fans coming out and supporting us in our home opener,” Boland said. “It was a tremendous environment and what better way to start it against a top Florida team who — you know — gave us challenges last year.”

Boland added the team’s ability to come out the gates fast and snag the doubles point was a huge positive, especially because Virginia had struggled in doubles last weekend.

“I thought we came out [and] played pretty well in doubles, which certainly helped us,” Boland said. “That was something we struggled with last week, but we turned that around and played better, at three-doubles in particular. That gave us a boost that carried through pretty well in singles”

The doubles point had been a big point of emphasis in the week leading up to the match. Although Boland stressed the importance of doubles, he was quick to add that winning the doubles point merely meant a good start, not a guaranteed victory.

“Well it’s what we talked about all week, you know we struggled last week against Kentucky and Vanderbilt,” Boland said. “I thought it was something we’d really worked hard on all week, so to get that doubles point felt good, but you know Florida lost both their doubles points last week, and ended up beating UCLA and USC, so, certainly didn’t have time to rest and enjoy the doubles point, knowing what they did last weekend against two of the best programs in the country.”

Senior J.C. Aragone talked about how the team has started to hit its stride.

“It was great to be out here — we had a packed house which was awesome,” Aragone said. “It’s nice to kind of, you know, start hitting our stride, I know the first couple of matches are always tough, so I’m really impressed with everyone and it’s just kind of nice to be back home.”

Boland and Aragone agreed that Virginia is playing well right now but must stay even-keeled. They have plenty of tough matches coming up to pose challenges for the top-ranked team in the country.

“I think we’re in a really good spot right now, and there’s always a lot of work to do,” Boland said.

“We have another tough Illinois team on Tuesday, you know, and they’re certainly always giving us challenges as well. We’ll take a day and then have a light hit and get ready for Illinois and then following that we’ll get right back at it again and play indoors, so we got a tough stretch right now.”

Virginia will now have two days to recover before hosting No. 17 Illinois at 5 p.m. Tuesday at the Boar’s Head Sports Club in Charlottesville.

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