Coming off a harsh away loss at North Carolina earlier in the week, No. 14 Virginia returned to Charlottesville looking to get back in the win column. Hosting a small, four-team ITA Kickoff Weekend tournament, the Cavaliers (5-1, 0-1 ACC) started strong with a competitive yet clean 4-0 win over Rice, before beating No. 20 USC by the same score in the championship game to earn qualification for the ITA Indoor Team Championships.
In its wins over the Owls (2-1, 0-0 AAC) and the Trojans (5-0, 1-0 Big Ten), Virginia took both doubles points, and performed excellently in singles. Of seven Cavaliers to play singles on the weekend, six scored points, with the win against USC including three Virginia players and one pairing defeating an opponent ranked higher than them nationally.
Fielding its best three doubles pairings — graduate student Melodie Collard and junior Vivian Yang on Court 1, senior Annabelle Xu and sophomore Martina Genis Salas on Court 2 and senior Meggie Navarro and sophomore Isabelle Lacy on Court 3 — Virginia quickly took the doubles point. Collard and Yang decimated their Rice opponents, taking a 6-0 win. Xu and Genis Salas followed suit a few minutes later — a clean serve by Genis Salas, sent wide by the returner, confirming a 6-2 win and the doubles point for the Cavaliers.
In singles, the Cavaliers’ pair of Canadian stars shined, scoring the team’s next two points. Collard fired first to take the score to 2-0, taking home a 6-1, 6-4 win on Court 5. With powerful serves and aggressive rallies from the baseline, she overwhelmed her opponent, coming back from a three-game deficit in the second set and taking her spring singles record to 3-1.
Xu was the next to score for Virginia. She got off to a rocky start against Lithuanian junior Uma Bakaityte on Court 2, falling behind 4-1 in the first set fairly quickly. She won five of the next seven games to force a first set tiebreak, which she won 7-1. Finding a lot of success with her forehand cross-court, she went on to take the second set 6-2 and take the Virginia lead to 3.
As Xu wrapped up, Genis Salas was approaching the end of her second set. Like Collard, Genis Salas had cleanly taken the first set, but trailed in the second against Montenegrin junior Divna Ratkovic. Hitting a handful of impressive circus shots and finding her usual success behind her strong serves and forehands, Genis Salas worked her way to a 6-2, 7-5 win, ending the match at 4-0 Virginia.
At the time of completion, Yang was partway through the third set on Court 1, having lost the first 6-4 and swept the second 6-0. Lacy had won a tiebreak in the first set, and was tied at 4-4 in the second. On Court 6, freshman Blair Gill was up 3-1 in the third at the end of the match, having won the first set and lost the second.
Against USC — who completed a comeback from down 3-1 against Wisconsin the prior night — the Cavaliers again took the doubles point. Rolling out the same doubles lineup as they did against Rice, Yang and Collard struck first, trouncing the No. 6 pairing in the country 6-1. Xu and Genis Salas followed suit minutes later with a 6-1 win of their own against the Trojans’ other ranked pairing.
In singles, Virginia again stuck to their guns, fielding a nearly identical lineup to the prior day, just with freshman Katie Rolls swapped in on Court 6. That lineup decision paid off immediately, as Rolls steamrolled her bottom-court opponent for a quick 6-2, 6-0 win.
The five higher courts were all much slower to finish, with three reaching a third set. On Court 4, Lacy only needed two, taking home a big 7-5, 7-6 win, winning the second-set tiebreak 8-6. Lacy, who only joined the team in January 2025, has started the season 5-0 in singles, looking to be a menace on Court 4 with her methodical baseline-centric style of play.
Of the handful of battles remaining, the winning point came from Court 1, where the two top programs’ number one singles players took part in a competitive three-set battle. Yang came out the victor in the dual’s third hour, logging a 6-4, 2-6, 6-3 win over Trojans senior Emma Charney, the No. 12 player in the country. At the time of completion, Genis Salas and Collard were in their third sets of play, while Xu was in a second-set deadlock after taking the first. The win also marked the 200th career victory for Coach Sarah O’Leary.
Before heading to Illinois for the Team Indoor Championships, the Cavaliers will compete in a pair of road duals against Big Ten teams. They will play No. 7 Michigan Friday, an undefeated team boasting four ranked singles players and three ranked pairings, before travelling to Columbus, Ohio to face Ohio State, another strong opponent with four top singles players and two pairings.
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