Junior Måns Dahlberg always plays his best tennis later in the year. That has been a pattern since he arrived at Virginia — he has slow starts to the season through January, February and March but puts it all together in April and May.
That trend has been on full display this season. Dahlberg went 1-4 in January and could not string together more than two wins in a row over the next two months. In April and May, however, the Swede has looked unstoppable, going undefeated through that ten-match stretch and dropping only four sets in the process.
Dahlberg cannot point to a single reason behind the recurring trend. He admits that, through three years of college tennis, experience with those shaky starts has piled up, meaning that he is now well-versed in reversing course and getting back to winning ways.
“I've had pretty wonky starts to all three seasons here,” Dahlberg said.
The start to the spring season, however, may have been Dahlberg’s wonkiest. Between Jan. 16 and March 23, he went 6-11 in singles and 5-6 in doubles — a difficult stretch for a player that entered the year ranked the No. 86 singles player in college tennis.
A rut like that takes time and effort to get out of, and Dahlberg said that much of his focus throughout the season has been mental, boiling his game down to the bare necessities and working from there.
“[It’s about] winning everything in between points,” Dahlberg said. “Staying positive, not being too hard on myself and accepting that everybody will miss a couple of forehands and backhands.”
Dahlberg said his “body attitude” is a crucial part of that and has allowed him to steal points here and there as the season has progressed. He said that, on the lower courts where he competes, grit and mentality can sometimes be equally, if not more, important than the actual tennis being played, in part because the slightly lower level of play makes mistakes more common.
“It's just so important to be 120 percent focused throughout the entire match, and you'll get two or three points every set,” Dahlberg said. “Which can, with no ad scoring, change the entire momentum of the game. So if you’re just present and willing to work out of every single corner, you have an advantage right away.”
After starting out the season playing mostly on Courts 3, 4 and 5, Dahlberg has found his home on Court 6. Following a straight-sets loss in Virginia’s March 23 home win over No. 7 Stanford, he went on a tear, logging seven consecutive straight-set singles wins, scoring the Cavaliers some much-needed points in competitive conference matchups.
Dahlberg’s growth was front and center in Virginia’s ACC Championship semifinal matchup against undefeated No. 1 Wake Forest April 19. With the score tied at three apiece, the clinching point came down to Dahlberg on Court 6 against a strong opponent in graduate student Luciano Tacchi — who had defeated freshman Jangjun Kim 6-1, 6-0 in the Cavaliers’ regular-season contest against the Demon Deacons in early March.
Having exchanged breaks with Tacchi early in a razor-thin third set, Dahlberg led 5-4. With his teammates lined shoulder-to-shoulder to his right, Dahlberg put pressure on his opponent, using his stapled strong baseline shots to push Tacchi back and force errors. Leading 40-0 — game point, break point, set point, match point all on the line — Dahlberg received a serve. Staying behind the baseline for the entire point, Dahlberg had an answer to every shot Tacchi sent his way. After a 12-ball rally, Tacchi sent a forehand into the net.
Ball game. The spectating Cavaliers erupted into cheers. Dahlberg spiked his cap onto the ground. Virginia had defeated the best team in college tennis.
“It was a super fun and electric moment,” Dahlberg said.
Dahlberg’s victory was made all the more electric by the format of the college game, especially the presence of teammates — some fighting by his side, others committed to support and encouragement when they themselves are not playing.
Dahlberg gets the best of both worlds there. He and sophomore Dylan Dietrich form the country’s No. 31 doubles pairing and are 11-8 on the season. When it comes to singles, Dahlberg’s court regularly receives attention from his teammates — especially juniors Ty Switzer and Douglas Yaffa — chirping from the sidelines between points.
The team has taglines and nicknames for everybody, but Dahlberg seems to get extra attention, boasting a dictionary-thick set of slogans and monikers including “the Måns Dahlberg show” and “put it in a museum.” Sure, their “shenanigans” can be a little frustrating when he is already in a bad mood, but Dahlberg said that, 99 percent of the time, having the support from Switzer, Yaffa and other teammates is an irreplaceable positive.
“I've been here with them for two and a half years now, and it's been a blast every single day,” Dahlberg said. “I'm super grateful to have those guys on my court.”
The confluence of these factors — his mental sharpening, his teammates’ support, simplifying his game — is what makes the late-season version of Dahlberg so special. High-speed and high-spin baseline shots, including thunderous forehands and pinpoint-accuracy backhands, have turned Dahlberg into one of the strongest Court 6 players in the nation.
With Virginia now three wins away from a national championship, having recently bested Bucknell and Princeton in regionals and Arizona in the Charlottesville Super Regional, Dahlberg’s return to form could not have come at a better time. Every point just matters more in the postseason, the margin for error shrinking with every passing match.
Asked about how one of his most experienced players conquered his early season woes and strung together an incredible win streak, Coach Andres Pedroso grinned. No surprises for him.
“We know that we can always depend on him to be the toughest out in college tennis at number six singles,” Pedroso said. “And that's just what he's done.”
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