It was a rough weekend for the Virginia men's tennis team as they went up against two of the better teams in the ACC and country. Coming off of a disappointing 6-1 loss to No. 22 Wake Forest on Saturday, the Cavaliers ran into a buzz saw against the No. 14 Duke Blue Devils on Sunday, who dominated from the outset to win 7-0.
The match began well for the Cavaliers as the No. 1 doubles combo of Michael Duquette and Stephen Nolen dominated their match against No. 17 Phillip King and Mike Yani 8-1. Unfortunately for Virginia, it was downhill for the rest of the day.
The Blue Devils' No. 2 and 3 doubles teams picked up the slack as Joel Spicher and Yorke Allen beat the Cavaliers' Jason Romesburg and Jonathan Chou 8-4 and Peter Shults and Jason Zimmerman defeated Virginia's Jay Curtis and Dillon Walker 8-5, respectively.
"We battled in a lot of our matches and I am very proud of that," coach Brian Boland said. "Obviously we would have liked to come up with the win, but they are a very good team. We are really young and I think we learned a lot of things this weekend, which is always key for a young team."
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Duke carried their momentum from the acquisition of the doubles point into singles competition as they dominated almost every match, with only Nolen winning a set.
No. 1 seed Duquette got down early against Duke's No. 14 King, and was unable to recover as he lost in straight sets, 6-4, 6-3.
No. 2 seed and senior Romesburg met the same fate as he got down 5-0 early, before going on to lose to Duke's No. 58 Yani 6-4, 6-3.
The day's most exciting match was between two star freshmen in Virginia's Nolen and Duke's Zimmerman. Nolen came out strong and won the first set 6-4, before Zimmerman battled back to take the second set 6-4 after he found his service game. The second set was a set of two halves, as Nolen battled out to a 5-2 lead, one game away from the win. But Zimmerman came on strong winning the next five games to take the set, and match, 4-6, 6-4, 7-5.
"It was very disappointing, but guys didn't give up when we got down," Nolen said. "I'm a competitor and I obviously don't like the way the match ended, but I think we have a lot to build on. I can't wait to get back out there and play another match."
The three lower seeds didn't fare much better for Virginia against the experienced Blue Devils. Sixth seed Greg Alpert went down in straight sets to Shults 6-3, 6-1. Curtis, Virginia's fifth seed, gave Allen all he could handle, but fell in two sets, 6-1, 6-4. Chou struggled against fourth seed Spicher and was unable to pick up either set, losing 6-2, 6-3.
Although it was a tough weekend for the Cavaliers with two straight losses, Boland sees better days ahead and a good chance to prove that against a tough schedule this week. The Cavaliers travel to Richmond on Tuesday before taking on Brown on Thursday.
"We will bounce back and continue to play good tennis," Boland said. "We are still young and learning every match. I hope we use this weekend as a learning experience and play our best against a tough schedule this week"
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