Even with the depth of the Virginia men's tennis team, junior Doug Stewart has been able to stand out from the rest. In a year when Virginia's men's tennis can beat you without its staff ace, its top player has all the ingredients for a stellar season.
No. 19 Stewart was named ACC Tennis Player of the Week yesterday after leading the Cavaliers to a pair of 7-0 victories at home against Old Dominion and Minnesota. The ACC Player of the Week nod is the second of Stewart's career. Over the last week, Stewart has beaten two nationally-ranked players, Minnesota's No. 105 Avery Ticer and No. 7 Izak van der Merwe of Old Dominion.
A week ago, Stewart was in a sort of fall hibernation -- he had not played or trained very often this past semester. He said he had hoped to finish his schoolwork in the off-season, in order to allow him to concentrate fully on tennis in the spring.
Any questions as to whether Stewart was a little rusty opening the season were dismissed in his win against van der Merwe, who he had also defeated during his freshman year. Stewart claimed that the top-20 battle between himself and van der Merwe would be his most difficult contest this year, not only because he had not played in a while, but also because he was not as good in the faster indoor game.
"This was my toughest match up of the whole year," Stewart said. "Playing him indoors is a real challenge for me because he hits everything as hard as he can."
In the matchup of top-20 players, Stewart fell behind early against van der Merwe, dropping the first set 6-2 and going down a break in the second.
"I knew I was playing better than him, I just wasn't winning the big points," Stewart said. "I knew if I just stayed in there long enough, I could win."
The junior did hang around enough and won the second set in a tiebreaker 7-6. In the super-tiebreaker for the third set, Stewart had to fend off three match points at 6-9 before pulling out the upset of van der Merwe. His teammates said they were impressed.
"I call the guy Houdini -- I've called him that for a couple of years," fellow junior Rylan Rizza said. "The guy just gets down but never gives up. He finds ways to win matches."
The Malibu, California native was one of the talented prizes of head coach Brian Boland's first recruiting class. Stewart made an immediate impact on the team, going 21-4 in dual meet matches and earned ACC Freshman of the Year honors. As the No. 1 player on the team, he faced off against the top players in the nation. Last year as a sophomore, Stewart posted a 25-9 record and was a 2004 All-American. He became the first Virginia player since Brian Vahaly in 2001 to earn a NCAA Singles Championship berth.
The credit for much of his success, Stewart claims, goes not only to hard work, but also to the unceasing effort of his coaches.
"Coach Boland works not only harder than any coach in the country -- he works pretty much harder than anyone that I've ever seen," Stewart said. "He's always working, coaching, helping us with our games and practices, organizing trips."
Virginia's early season dominance comes even as team members claim that they want to play their best tennis at the end of the year. The Cavalier tennis team has yet to get into the heart of the season in which 20 of their 21 opponents are ranked in the preseason top-75. Though it's hard to top a week of 7-0 sweeps, Stewart and the Cavaliers will likely continue to get better as the year progresses.
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