It's no surprise that the Virginia men's tennis team defeated William & Mary, 5-2, yesterday. The Cavaliers, ranked 17 spots higher, have not lost to the Tribe in over 50 years.
But sometimes it's how you win, not the victory itself, that is the most important thing.
At the Sheridan Snyder Tennis Center yesterday, Virginia (7-3) triumphed with outstanding efforts from the bottom half of its lineup, where play has been inconsistent throughout the entire season. Sophomore Michael Duquette and senior Brian Hunter, the No. 4 and No. 5 singles players, respectively, have both lost their last two singles contests. But both won their matches to help the Cavaliers close the door on William & Mary (9-9). Junior James Romesburg, who plays at the sixth spot, went down to the wire against the Tribe's Matt Davis before losing in a super-tiebreaker, 6-3, 4-6, 0-1.
"More than anything else, I'm just happy about the contributions we got from the guys who have recently been struggling," Virginia coach Dick Stockton said. "Hunter's been struggling with his tennis and his confidence, and Duquette's been up and down. Romesburg has been overcoming sickness. But today, they all played very well when we needed them."
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Virginia received its usual contributions from its doubles teams and senior veterans Brian Vahaly and Huntley Montgomery, the Cavaliers' top two players. Virginia won all three of its doubles matches, and Vahaly and Montgomery convincingly sailed through their matches. Vahaly beat Tribe senior Trevor Spracklin, 6-2, 6-3, and Montgomery downed Patrick Brown, 6-0, 6-2 to give the Cavaliers a commanding 3-0 lead.
Four close matches still remained on the courts, however, and the final result was still in doubt. But it wasn't long until Duquette defeated William & Mary junior Chris Erikson, 7-5, 6-4, to clinch the match-winning point.
"I was really happy to pull the win out," Duquette said. "I knew all the other matches were really tight and that it could come right down to my match - that it could be the deciding point. So I stepped it up, started out strong and kept it going through the whole match."
Hunter's match, decided in a neck-to-neck super-tiebreaker, ended the contest with a bang. After dropping the first set, he stormed back to force the super-tiebreaker, where he prevailed against Tribe freshman Geoffrey Russell, 3-6, 7-6, 1-0.
"Hunter played a very good match," Stockton said. "He just raised the level of his play so much during his match. It was a good win for him even though by then the match was over."
In addition to being crucial victories in Virginia's match against William & Mary, Duquette and Hunter's wins also boosted the Cavaliers' confidence. Although Virginia is strong at the top of its lineup with a top 15 player in Vahaly, the Cavaliers' lack of experience in the bottom half has been costly. In the showdown against North Carolina on Sunday, Vahaly and Montgomery won their matches, but Virginia still fell short as the rest of the squad dropped its matches.
The opposite occurred in yesterday's win, and it shows just how much the Cavaliers need a strong showing from the entire team in order to pull out a victory.
"We've got a lot of tennis coming up, and we're going to need everybody to make a contribution and to play the way they did today," Stockton said. "It's not going to be easy, but if we play like we did today from top to bottom, we're going to be okay"
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