The No. 2 Virginia men's tennis team continued its domination yesterday with a 6-1 win against No. 39 Virginia Tech at the Snyder Tennis Center.
The Cavaliers' doubles teams swept the Hokies'. Juniors Somdev Devvarman and Treat Huey defeated the Hokies' unit of freshman Pedro Graber and sophomore Nicolas Delgado by a score of 8-4. Junior Ted Angelinos and freshman Lee Singer defeated the Hokies' duo of senior Arvid Puranen and sophomore Brandon Corace 8-3.
The doubles match between Virginia's duo of freshman Houston Barrick and sophomore Dominic Inglot and Virginia Tech's senior Alexei Sergeev and junior Albert Larregola, however, stole the show yesterday. After falling behind three games to one, Barrick and Inglot fought back to win six of the next seven games to go up 7-4. They then found themselves in a battle, though, as Sergeev and Larregola tied it up at seven games apiece. Barrick and Inglot were able to manage to pull out the win in the tiebreak.
"We just started slow," Inglot said. "I got broken straight away. I wasn't used to the wind. We battled back and we knew within a game a two that it was not a question of whether we were going to win but when we were going to win. We were very confident. And when you have that kind of confidence you feel like you can come back straight away. And that's what we did in the next two games."
After the comeback, the pair had a temporary loss of focus, but it did not cost them the match.
"We went to 7-4 and we got a little carried away and we wanted to get the first match for Virginia," Inglot said. "We made a few silly shots. We kind of lost our concentration a little but we focused back in the end. As long as we stay focused we don't have any problems, but sometimes we lose it."
No. 2 singles player Devvarman continued his winning ways in his singles match as he downed Puranen in straight sets 6-4, 6-4. It took a while for Devvarman to break Puranen's serve, but once he did, he had him on the ropes.
"He was serving well and coming up big a little bit," Devvarman said. "In the eighth game I just made sure I made a lot of balls and I wanted to make him to do it over and over again. And if he did, [then] well and good, but as I thought, he broke down a little bit and I just took advantage of that."
All but one Cavalier won their singles match. Huey defeated Larregola 6-3, 6-2; Inglot defeated Delgado 6-3, 6-2; senior Marko Miklo defeated Hokie junior Ignaci Roca 6-0, 6-1 and Singer defeated Corace 6-3, 6-2. Barrick was the only Virginia player not victorious in his singles match as he lost to freshman Yoann Re in his tiebreak 10-4 after winning one set 6-4 and losing the other 4-6.
The day was a success for the Cavaliers as they added another point to Virginia's overall lead in the Commonwealth Challenge against Virginia Tech.
"We did an excellent job preparing this week," Virginia coach Brian Boland said. "I think our team continues to get better and better as we have gotten acclimated to the outdoors now and I'm pleased with our team's overall performance.
Despite their satisfaction with the win, the Cavaliers cannot afford to lose focus as they will host ACC foe Clemson Friday.
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