The Virginia men's tennis team will spend this weekend at Tobacco Road with their ACC title to defend. The No. 11 Cavaliers face No. 12 North Carolina Friday afternoon and No. 6 Duke Sunday.
While Virginia (18-6, 8-1 ACC) has dominated the ACC over the last few years, the Cavaliers experienced a chink in their armor last Friday with a home loss to No. 14 Miami. Last Friday's loss makes this weekend's matches "must-wins" if the Cavaliers hope to win another ACC regular season title.
"They're definitely the two biggest matches of the year," sophomore Treat Huey said. "They're both against top teams and coming into this week, if we win both of them, we win the ACC outright for the regular season. That was definitely one of our goals at the start of the year."
With a win over North Carolina Wednesday, Duke (16-5, 8-1 ACC) shares the ACC lead with Virginia. However, Sunday's match will be moot for the purposes of the ACC title should the Cavaliers lose to the Tar Heels Friday.
North Carolina (21-3, 6-3 ACC) is certainly not an opponent to be taken lightly. The Tar Heels, led by 13-year coach Sam Paul, feature the No. 18 singles player in the nation -- Raian Luchici -- along with the No. 6 doubles duo of Luchici and Brad Pomeroy. While North Carolina lost to Duke, the match did have an upset individually, with Luchici defeating Duke's number one singles player, No. 4 Ludovic Walter. Luchici is 6-2 in his ACC matches and has won 22 of his 29 matches. The Luchici-Pomeroy partnership lost Wednesday but has a 5-4 ACC record and a 23-9 overall record.
If the Cavaliers win Friday, they will face Duke Sunday for the ACC crown, barring a Duke meltdown to Virginia Tech. The Blue Devils, led by 15-year coach Jay Lapidus, have put together an impressive record with the help of some incredible individual efforts. Duke's top three singles players are all nationally ranked, with a combined record of 75-33. No. 4 Walter is Duke's number one singles player, with a 7-2 ACC record to his credit. No. 37 Jonathan Stokke is the number two, having won five of eight ACC contests. No. 70 Peter Rodrigues completes the trio with an impressive 8-1 ACC record.
Despite the ominous opposition, the Cavaliers have their own rankings to flash. Like Duke, Virginia's top three singles players are nationally ranked, with a combined record of 69-29. No. 9 Somdev Devvarman is the number one with an ACC record of 4-1 and an overall record of 22-7. No. 67 Rylan Rizza is the number two, having won four of his five ACC matches and 22 of his 34 matches overall. No. 53 Huey is the number three with an ACC record of 5-1 and a 25-10 record overall. While individual matches will make-or-break the overall match, the team has spent a lot of practice time working on doubles.
"[We've been] working a lot on doubles, and doubles is definitely getting better," Meythaler said. "Guys are getting confident in singles, so it's coming together."
While the three Cavaliers appear to be Virginia's top three singles players for the weekend's contests, fifth-year coach Brian Boland has mixed up the rotation a number of times this year. Senior Doug Stewart has played ten matches in the number one slot this year, but has also played as the number four. Current number one Devvarman has played as many matches at number two as he has at number one.
Apart from having to deal with two top-tier teams, the Cavaliers will have to play on foreign ground. However, Virginia has not had problems on the road this year. The team is 9-2 at home and 9-4 on the road this year.
"It's really, at this point in the season, how much enthusiasm these guys have, and how hard they work each and every day to get better" Boland said.
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