No. 5 Virginia rallied from a 2-0 deficit to defeat No. 26 Columbia 4-2 Saturday evening at the Virginia Tennis Facility at the Boar’s Head Resort, advancing to the Sweet Sixteen of the 2026 NCAA Men’s Tennis Championship. The win kept the Cavaliers (24-4, 12-1 ACC) home record perfect on the season.
The match was a stark contrast from Virginia’s dominant 6-1 win over the Lions (17-8, 6-1 Ivy League) back on Jan. 30 indoors, when the Cavaliers had controlled every court from the opening point. On Saturday, Columbia instead made Virginia earn every point. The Lions have won three consecutive Ivy League titles, and Saturday marked the final college tennis match for their senior class of Michael Zheng, Nicolas Kotzen and Sachin Palta.
The doubles point set an uncomfortable tone for Virginia from the start, with the Lions winning two of three courts to take the point and an early 1-0 lead.
Columbia struck first and decisively on Court 2, where freshman Andrew Ena and Palta broke down the pairing of freshman Andres Santamarta Roig and sophomore Jangjun Kim 6-0. Multiple missed volleys from the Cavaliers led them to go down 0-5 and the Lions never looked back, closing the court out without dropping a game.
However, Virginia answered on Court 1, where the NCAA Doubles champions and No. 12-ranked pairing of senior Mans Dahlberg and junior Dylan Dietrich delivered a 6-2 win over Zheng and Kotzen. Dahlberg and Dietrich stayed poised throughout the set, with Dietrich dictating from the baseline and Dahlberg finishing points cleanly at the net. The win was the bright spot of an otherwise difficult doubles point.
The decider came down to Court 3, where sophomore pairing of Stiles Brockett and Keegan Rice were in a competitive battle with sophomore Thanaphat Boosarawongse and freshman Abhishket Thorat. Rice was very effective at the net, cutting off angles and looking to intercept at every opportunity, and the pair clawed their way back from an early break to make it a contest. Rice and Brockett fought to 3-3 before Columbia broke again and held serve to close out 6-4.
Columbia wasted no time expanding their lead in singles. On Court 5, Thorat defeated Brockett 6-2, 6-4 in a straightforward performance, with Brockett dropping the first set before being unable to find the gear he needed in the second, going down and giving the Lions a 2-0 advantage.
No. 21 Rice got the Cavaliers on the board on Court 2, defeating No. 45 Kotzen 7-5, 6-3 in a performance that steadied Virginia when it needed it most. After dropping a key deuce point to go from 4-3 to 4-4 in the first set, Rice regrouped and took control, going up 6-5 on his return before closing it out 7-5. He was efficient in the second, going up 4-2, then 5-2, before closing out 6-3. Rice displayed clean and aggressive shots off his forehand and good movement that Kotzen could not keep up with. The win gave Virginia its first point and renewed the belief that a comeback was possible.
No. 58 Santamarta Roig and No. 114 Kim both dropped their first sets 6-4 before mounting parallel comebacks that became the emotional center of the afternoon.
On Court 3, Santamarta Roig dropped the opening set to No. 101 Palta before regrouping. He broke through in the second set, taking it 6-4, before running away with the third 6-2 in a dominant display of heavy groundstrokes and relentless pressure from the baseline. Santamarta Roig tied the match at 2-2 and swung momentum firmly back to the Cavaliers.
Kim’s Court 4 battle against Boosarawongse was a rematch of a battle the two had fought in their junior tennis days, and one that Kim had lost to Boosarawongse in three sets in their January meeting. Saturday, the script flipped. Kim was broken in the opening game and fell behind early in the first set, struggling to find his range. Head Coach Andres Pedroso noticed Kim’s frustration and called out from the sideline “me and you,” pushing Kim to keep fighting. In the second set, Kim came out more aggressive, stepping into his forehand and targeting Boosarawongse’s backhand. He went up 4-1, then 5-2 before closing out 6-3 to level the match. In the third, Kim quickly went up 4-1 and closed it 6-2 with clean, confident tennis.
Sitting in the stands on Court 4, former Virginia men’s tennis player James Hopper was cheering on his old teammates, telling Kim to “trust it,” as Kim snagged another point for the Cavaliers.
With Virginia ahead for the first time, all eyes turned to Court 1, where No.1 Dietrich was locked in the match of the day against No. 5 Zheng, back-to-back NCAA singles champion and one of the best young players in the world.
The first set was a war. Dietrich was down 4-3 in a close game before Zheng broke on deuce to lead 5-3. Dietrich clawed back to 6-6, and the two went to a tiebreak. At 3-5 in the breaker, Dietrich clawed back to 4-5, then 5-5, then 6-5, before Zheng pulled ahead. It was Zheng serving with the score at 7-6 in his favor, and, after a long rally, he took the tiebreak 8-6 to win the first set. Dietrich’s approach throughout was clear and unapologetic.
“I’m just going to go for it,” Dietrich noted in a post-match interview. “If my ball is there, I am going to hit it. If I miss, I can go to bed tonight knowing I did what I did best, being offensive.”
Dietrich did not flinch. Even as Zheng consistently got Dietrich’s aggressive shots back, Dietrich won the second 6-3, breaking early and keeping the pressure on throughout, his inside out forehand finding corners and his serve landing deep when he needed it the most. The third set went 3-2, then 3-3, then 5-4 before Dietrich closed it out 6-4, clinching the match for Virginia and his 21st win on Court 1 in the process.
“It was super high level from the both of us,” Dietrich said. “I feel like we both felt it physically.”
The match proved Dietrich’s spot as the No. 1 singles player in the country, after defeating one of the greatest collegiate players in NCAA history — Zheng, the back-to-back NCAA singles champion, three-time Ivy League Player of the Year, four-time All-American and four-time First Team All-Ivy honoree in both singles and doubles, having won over 100 career matches. On Saturday, in his final collegiate match, Zheng gave Virginia everything he could handle before the curtain finally fell.
Dahlberg’s Court 6 match against freshman Aditya Govila was left unfinished, with Dahlberg having won the first set 7-6(5) in a tightly contested tiebreak that went point-by-point before dropping the second set 4-6 after coming back from a 5-0 deficit. Dahlberg was painting the lines in his match, hitting low forehands that moved Govila all around the court. He was leading 2-0 in the third when play was stopped.
“I'm just really proud of this team,” Coach Andres Pedroso said. “These guys just fight until the end. They've done it all season. We've been down many times this season, and these guys just don't give up. So they always give themselves a chance. I am really proud of their fight, and let's keep it going”
With the win, Virginia advanced to host No. 13 South Carolina in the Super Regional next weekend, with the Cavaliers’ NCAA title aspirations very much intact.
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