The No. 2 Virginia men’s tennis team beat NC State and Duke over the weekend in dominant fashion. The team topped NC State (10-10, 1-4 ACC) in Raleigh Friday, 7-0, and won by the same margin Sunday against Duke (10-7, 3-3 ACC) in front of a sizeable home crowd at Snyder Tennis Courts.
Virginia (17-0, 4-0 ACC) wasted no time in its match against NC State. After quickly picking up the doubles point, the team won five of the six singles matches in straight sets. Freshman Aswin Lizen lost his first set to Ivan Saveljic, but came back to win the second set and ultimately took the match after winning a tiebreaker in the third. Lizen’s win completed Virginia’s sweep over the Wolfpack.
Duke came to Charlottesville Sunday to square off against Virginia in the first home outdoor match of the season. Virginia took the doubles point — thanks to the teamwork of senior Thai-Son Kwiatkowski and junior Alexander Ritschard — and carried momentum over to singles play, where each player won in straight sets. Due to an injury-ridden Duke team, Virginia took one doubles match by default, and only had to win one other doubles match to get the point.
Ritschard, senior J.C. Aragone and junior Collin Altamirano each won their matches with little drama. After the matches ended, all eyes were on Kwiatkowski’s contest against Duke’s freshman Spencer Furman. Kwiatkowski won the first set 6-1, but got a fight out of Furman in the second set. Furman forced a tiebreaker but eventually Kwiatkowski came out on top, winning the tiebreaker, 9-7.
Kwiatkowski was satisfied with the team’s effort against a talented Duke team.
“Every ACC match is tough. Every team can play really, really well,” Kwiatkowski said. “Duke’s a really good team, and I was happy with how we played in the doubles to start the match. And when you have good energy in doubles it usually carries over into singles.”
The home atmosphere at Snyder helped give Kwiatkowski the edge when it came down to the final set.
“As a senior, I only have so many matches left here at Snyder, and I think Snyder is one of my favorite places to play tennis,” Kwiatkowski said. “We had a pretty good crowd for our first match and they were behind me ... And it’s just really nice to have that home crowd support and we’re really grateful to our fans.”
An injured Duke team came to town with only six healthy players, and senior T.J. Pura got hurt while warming up for doubles, putting Duke at a huge disadvantage. The injuries meant only four singles games were played.
Virginia Coach Brian Boland commented on the importance of health throughout the season.
“We want to continue to stay healthy,” Boland said. “We’ve been nicked up a little bit as well at times. It’s a long season. Carl’s been out now for a while and it’s day-to-day right now so we’re hopefully looking forward to seeing him soon … Taking it a day at a time and focusing on getting better.”
The win keeps Virginia undefeated on the season — with 11 of its 17 wins as sweeps. As the team heads into more ACC play wins will not be easy to come by, but the team is angling to play their best tennis come May.
“I believe we’re getting better with each match,” Boland said. “And certainly I’ve seen the guys improve as competitors throughout the year and we just need to concentrate on continuing to play good doubles and focus on a day at a time the rest of the season, starting with our next match.”
Eight matches remain in the season before the team heads to the ACC Tournament in late April.
“We’re just working on all the little things to make sure that we peak in May,” Kwiatkowski said. “[We are] working extra hard on the fitness now so that come May we can play four or five matches in a row, which is what the NCAA’s are all about. The season is a marathon.”
The team returns to action Friday at 4 p.m. to take on Wake Forest in Winston-Salem, N.C.
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