The month of February felt much longer than 28 days for the No. 1 Virginia men’s tennis team. Enervated by two intense weeks of tennis — seven matches in 14 days — senior Dominic Inglot began to feel the wear and tear of a grueling schedule, dropping his last two singles matches against Boise State and Virginia Tech players.
In his first match back after a much-needed week-long reprieve, though, Inglot played what Virginia coach Brian Boland called “the best match I’ve seen him play all year,” leading Virginia to a 6-1 victory yesterday against Old Dominion at the Sheridan Snyder Tennis Center. Virginia then made the short trip to the Boyd Tinsley Courts at the Boar’s Head Sports Club for another match against Howard and rolled to a 7-0 victory.
“Coming after national indoors, winning ... I was really feeling it a lot,” Inglot said. “I think when I came back, I was struggling in the practices a little bit and it started showing in the matches ... It showed I’m struggling a little bit there with tiredness and the confidence. I wasn’t getting confidence from the training.”
Inglot, however, rebounded to defeat Old Dominion’s sophomore No. 106 Tobias Fanselow at the No. 2 singles slot.
“We took a break with Spring Break and I feel like the whole team feels rejuvenated,” Inglot said.
The resurgence for the Cavaliers (17-0, 3-0 ACC) began at the No. 2 doubles slot, which features the No. 23-ranked team of Inglot and sophomore Michael Shabaz. The pair held a 5-4 lead when Shabaz fired a serve for one of several aces on the day. The point set the tone for the rest of the match, as the tandem swept the next three games to win 8-4.
“Doubles went really well,” Shabaz said. “I felt like me and [Inglot] really clicked today. He was serving well, we were volleying well, returning well. I thought we were pretty good in all phases; when we put our first serves in, they’re big enough that we can really control the point.”
Junior Lee Singer and freshman Drew Courtney secured the doubles point for the Cavaliers against Old Dominion (13-9) with an 8-3 triumph against junior Yakov Diskin and sophomore Alex Funkhouser.
The team then carried its momentum into singles, starting with Inglot’s victory against Fanselow. Inglot said his immediate success in the first outdoor affair of the season might be attributed to an increased outdoor training routine.
“In the past I haven’t been looking forward to [outdoors] because indoors is usually my strength,” Inglot said. “But this year I’m really looking forward to the outdoors — we did some great training before this match and it shows everyone’s playing really good tennis.”
Inglot said his newfound enthusiasm for outdoor play arose because of his increasing comfort with his serve.
“I’ve always been a lot reliant on my serve,” Inglot said. “And sometimes when my serve came back I felt like uh-oh — a little bit of panic ... I didn’t really enjoy playing from the back, but now I’ve really worked with the coaches on that and now I’m really happy playing from the back.”
No. 16 Shabaz continued the Cavaliers’ winning trend with a 7-6, 6-4 victory against sophomore Matt Fawcett. Though Shabaz needed only two sets to clinch the singles point, the match did not conclude without controversy. In the first set point, there was a dispute about whether the ball hit in-bounds.
“I thought the ball was in,” Shabaz said. “It’s kind of frustrating but I guess you just gotta put it away and keep playing.”
Although he won the match, Shabaz credited his opponent for the tough play.
Fawcett “had a good serve,” Shabaz said. “When he got his first serve in it was tough to deal with it because he took the first strike of the point. He played well and it was a pretty good match.”
The remaining singles contests in the lower spots were less competitive, though, as freshman Steven Eelkman Rooda and Courtney each posted 6-3, 6-0 wins at the No. 5 and No. 6 singles slots, respectively. Junior Houston Barrick rounded out the Virginia victory with a 6-4, 6-3 win at the No. 4 position against Diskin.
The team followed up its triumph against Old Dominion by cruising against Howard. Numerous players who generally see little court time in matches saw playing time, winning each doubles match by at least four games and claiming every singles match in straight sets.
Boland attributes the team’s strong performance throughout the day to the team’s rest and the arrival of March. Virginia will try to sustain its energy this weekend when the team heads to Texas to play No. 12 Baylor and No. 10 Texas.
The break “was absolutely essential considering how tired we were at the end of the last match against Virginia Tech,” Boland said. “We had an opportunity to rest and regroup mentally and physically and had four excellent days of practice. We’re in a really good situation.”
Notes
Sophomore Sanam Singh lost for the first time in singles 4-6, 7-6, 10-7 ... Inglot started in No. 2 singles for the first time this season after playing No. 1 previously this season ... The No. 2-ranked doubles tandem of Barrick and Singh lost for only the second time this season, falling 8-5 to No. 53 Seleznev/Fanselow ... Freshmen David Nguyen and Reese Milner each won their singles matches 6-0, 6-1.
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