After recording their first loss of the season at the National Team Indoor tournament last weekend, the No. 3 Cavaliers will look to get back on track Friday and Saturday against No. 8 Pepperdine and No. 19 Boise State. Virginia will be led by No. 22 junior Treat Huey, who recently garnered the ACC Player of the Week award for the second consecutive week. Huey capped off a great week of play with an upset in singles play over Georgia's Luis Flores, currently ranked ninth in the nation.
"It's definitely a good feeling [to win the award]." Huey said. "I just played really well last week in National Indoors, and I had some good wins, and getting the award again was just great."
In the match against Georgia, Virginia was the first team to take a point from the Bulldogs all season. The close match against the top-ranked team in the nation gave the young Virginia team a lot of confidence moving forward.
"We're definitely hungry to get better and hopefully build on the success that we had there." Huey said.
The loss to Georgia was the Cavaliers' first this season, but the team left the match with positive thoughts.
"I was really disappointed with the outcome of the match but I was certainly pleased with the effort the team put in." Virginia coach Brian Boland said. "I thought we gained a lot of valuable experience and continue to gain confidence with each match and prove with the tough schedule that we've already faced."
"The tough schedule" for the Cavaliers will be on display this weekend as Virginia hosts two top-20 opponents. Pepperdine is the defending national champion, and the Cavaliers will be looking for revenge after losing to the Waves 4-3 last year in their season opener.
"They're the defending national champs and to play them this year will be great," Huey said. "Hopefully we can come out with a victory."
The key match to watch will be between Virginia's No. 4 junior Somdev Devvarman and Pepperdine's No. 15 junior Andre Begemann. Devvarman is coming off of a loss to No. 2 John Isner, but has been very strong in his last several matches. Begemann is 8-1 on the first court this year in dual matches and is 3-2 versus ranked opponents in dual matches and on tour. Begemann has also won three straight matches.
Devvarman won't get any rest after Friday's match, as he is scheduled to play No. 7 junior Luke Shields of Boise State Saturday. Shields and Devvarman most recently squared off in the Polo Ralph Lauren Men's All-American Championships, where Devvarman defeated Shields in the quarterfinals in straight sets. Shields, though highly ranked, has struggled against top opponents; he has lost matches to No. 4 Devvarman, Notre Dame senior Stephen Bass and Mississippi junior Erling Tveit, who at the time of the matches were ranked 11th and 12th, respectively.
Boise State should present less of a challenge than Pepperdine; in the NTI tournament, Boise lost to Mississippi and Texas, two teams that Virginia beat.
"I think we're getting much better with each challenge we face." Boland said. "I think it's only going to help us in the long-run come ACC championships and NCAA championships I believe this is what we need, and it's helped us in the past."
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