The Virginia men's tennis team will hope to win their second straight match when they take on in-state adversary James Madison University today at the Sheridan Snyder Tennis Center at 2:30 p.m. The match was originally scheduled for Tuesday, but was postponed due to rain.
The Cavaliers are coming off a dominating 7-0 win over Georgetown on Saturday in which the team won 15 of the 17 sets played. The top three seeds only lost a total of nine games in their singles matches, as Virginia improved to 7-3 on the year.
"The guys are really working hard right now," assistant coach Rob Abendroth said. "They have really improved quicker than any of us expected. They are fighting as hard as they can when they go out to play, and we are really proud of the way they have played and fought this season."
Virginia has won six of its last eight going into the match against James Madison. Last season, Virginia dominated the Dukes, winning the match by a score of 6-1.
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The Dukes have quite a bit of talent at the top of their lineup as they will throw the combination of Andrew Lux and Mike Hendricksen at the Cavaliers' No. 1 seed Michael Duquette and No. 2 seed Stephen Nolan.
The first two seeds are the strength for the Dukes squad and they will be counting on their top guns to pick up wins in both singles and doubles if they hope to leave Charlottesville with a win.
Top seeds Duquette and Nolan have a little extra motivation, as Lux was a member of the doubles team that upended the duo in the fall.
"We really want to play well," Duquette said. "Their number one guy got me back in the fall, and I want to beat him this time. But I want to keep my head about me as I go in."
The young Cavaliers have played much better than expected over the first month of the season, as they had come into the year with fresh faces after losing four seniors to graduation last season.
The Cavaliers hung tough with a very strong Florida State team, staying close for much of the match before losing it 5-2 in the end to an experienced Seminole squad.
"We are pretty excited with the way we have been playing," Duquette said. "We had a tough loss to Florida State, but we bounced back with a dominating win over Georgetown. We need to have the same attitude for James Madison so we can come up with a win."
The Cavaliers have the depth advantage over the Dukes, so they plan to lock-up the lower seeds. Virginia will look to run out a lineup of Duquette, Nolan, Jason Romesburg, Jay Curtis, Jonathan Chou and Gregory Alpert, with Nolan and Duquette, Chou and Romesburg and Curtis with freshman Dillon Walker in doubles.
The Cavaliers are playing their last non-conference matchup before a big weekend against ACC powerhouses Duke and Wake Forest. Though the Cavaliers lost their first ACC match, Abendroth said he thinks it will help in the upcoming matches.
"They are going to surprise some people down the road," he said. "They have gotten a lot of confidence over the last week, even with a loss. We have a lot of toughness and our depth is going to help down the road"
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