The Virginia women's tennis team travels to Cary, N.C. this weekend to compete in the ACC Championship, in which the sixth-seeded Cavaliers will begin tournament play against 11th-seeded Boston College.
Although the Cavaliers (13-8, 6-5 ACC) posted a decisive 7-0 victory against the Eagles earlier this season, they know that Boston College (6-15, 1-10 ACC) has improved since the start of conference play.
"I think we can handle them, but it won't be easy," coach Mark Guilbeau said. "We're going to have to play well and play hard."
If the Cavaliers advance to the next round, they will face No. 3 seed Clemson, which handed Virginia a tough loss during its regular-season finale Sunday. Clemson, ranked eighth nationally, narrowly escaped from Charlottesville with a 4-3 victory, which means this weekend, the Cavaliers will be looking for revenge.
"If we get through the first round of the ACCs, we'll get them again in the second round, so hopefully we'll be able to take them down then," sophomore Emily Fraser said. "We're very excited because I think we definitely have a chance to beat them the second time around."
The players might be eager to avenge their loss, but Guilbeau is not quite ready to speculate about the potential rematch.
"I think we want to get B.C., and then we're very fortunate if we can get in that position to have a rematch [with Clemson]," he said. "We're going to focus solely on B.C. at the start."
To achieve that success, Guilbeau said he will maintain the same approach he has used throughout the season - an approach that has helped guide the Cavaliers to their No. 26 national ranking.\n"We don't try to reinvent anything really but just to polish up - keeping the ball low when you are playing against net players, understanding when the net players are too close to the net, and maybe when it's not even possible to get the ball low, you go over them, you use the lob," Guilbeau said. "A lot of that is just concentration, focus and visual awareness. It's just tennis smarts. And we have to touch up on that and make sure the kids are really engaged in that way."
Preparation and potential matchups aside, Fraser said the atmosphere surrounding the tournament - which features reigning national champion Duke and nationally top-seeded North Carolina - is unlike any other.
"It's super exciting and super busy because the tournament has the men's and women's teams there," Fraser said. "There's a ton of people around, and there's a lot of energy. The ACCs and NCAAs are my favorite time of year because of that."
And despite the stiff competition, Guilbeau said his squad has the ability to turn some heads at the tournament.
"I think we've played fairly competitively with the top teams in the conference and I think we have that realistic opportunity to get to the final," he said. "But our modest goal is to beat B.C. on Thursday. That's really the only goal. It's good in a way to look at your path. To really be prepared and work hard for three days, four days. But there is nothing more important than to look at the one team we play and that's B.C. on Thursday."
First round action will begin at 9 a.m. today, with the championship match taking place at 11 a.m. Sunday.?
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