After 13 straight wins to end the regular season and a clean victory over No. 33 Stanford in the ACC Championship quarterfinals, No. 7 Virginia extended its run of form in the semifinals to reach the Championship game. Defeating a strong No. 18 Duke, the Cavaliers (21-4, 12-0 ACC) showed composure and grit to leave with a 4-2 win and advance to their second consecutive conference tournament final.
Against a Blue Devils (18-7, 10-3 ACC) squad that had won six straight duals, Virginia was forced to dig in for the doubles point. No. 27-ranked senior Annabelle Xu and sophomore Martina Genis Salas opened doubles play with a quick win on Court 2 to set the Cavaliers up to take the first point — pulling away in the second half of the set after starting 3-3 — but both other courts were in neck and neck contests.
On Court 3, sophomore Isabelle Lacy and freshman Katie Rolls had started up 3-0, before exchanging holds with their opponents to reach a 4-1 advantage. The Duke pairing opposite them, however, then won three straight to even the set at four apiece. The two duos then exchanged holds, before the Blue Devils broke the set open with a break. A handful of stellar defensive performances from Lacy, however, then earned a break and forced a tiebreak.
Lacy and Rolls then got off to a strong start in the tiebreak, starting off 4-1 off big serves and lucky mistakes from their opponents. The Duke pairing was able to even it at 4-4, but the Cavaliers won two key points at 5-5 to secure the doubles point. That left Court 1 unfinished, where No. 8 graduate student Melodie Collard and junior Vivian Yang had a match point against them, trailing 5-4, 40-15.
As singles play got underway, the two squads looked prepared for a nailbiter of a dual, with each winning three first sets.
Looking for the upset, the Blue Devils struck first in singles. No. 122 Genis Salas never found her footing in her Court 5 match against junior Shavit Kimchi, who attacked Genis Salas’ second serve to record key breaks en route to a 6-1, 6-1 win that evened the dual at 1-1.
No. 114 Lacy, carrying her exemplary play from doubles into her Court 4 matchup, then dominated her opponent to make it 2-1 for the Cavaliers. Winning both sets by a 6-2 margin, Lacy played with confidence from the baseline, hitting powerful serves with pinpoint accuracy and blasting groundstrokes to put the team ahead.
Again, however, Duke was able to tie the dual. The Blue Devils’ top player, No. 14 sophomore Irina Balus, defeated No. 61 Yang on Court 1 with a runaway second set. The first set had been close — reaching a tiebreak that Balus won 7-3 — but Duke’s star then flipped a switch in the second, sweeping Yang 6-0 to tie the dual at two each.
That would be the last point the Blue Devils scored on the day. With three courts remaining in play, the Cavaliers earned wins on Courts 2 and 3 to punch their ticket to tomorrow’s final.
First, on Court 2, No. 29 Xu had pulled away early in the first set to take it 6-3, but faced stiffer competition from No. 48 freshman Aspen Schuman in the second. Schuman opened the set with two holds and a break to get up 3-1, but Xu remained composed to hold again then break to even it at 3-3. After another hold, then another break, Xu was up 5-3. Schuman then broke Xu’s serve to put the set back in reach, and started off 40-15 in the next game, but Xu would win two straight points before blasting a backhand down the line to cement a 6-3, 6-4 win.
Not long afterwards, No. 83 Rolls iced the dual on Court 2, also coming back from down 40-15 in the final game. Rolls had dominated her service games in the first set, placing it with precision and keeping it low to win the set 7-5. Then, in the second, she got off to a quick 3-1 lead, which turned into a 5-4 lead after several exchanged breaks and holds. After falling behind 40-15, Rolls then kept her aggression high, punctuating her comeback with an emphatic overhand to end the dual.
At the time of completion, Collard was up 3-2 in the second set, having lost the first in a 7-4 tiebreak.
In Sunday’s final, the Cavaliers will face a familiar foe in No. 13 NC State. Virginia played the three-seed Wolfpack (21-7, 10-2 ACC) exactly this past Sunday, beating them 4-2 to win the program’s first ever outright ACC regular season title. The dual will begin at 2 p.m.
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