After a four-match road swing, the top-ranked Virginia men's tennis team returns to the Snyder Tennis Center for the first time this spring to take on No. 26 Miami?.
While the Cavaliers (19-0) found tremendous success on the road, tallying a dominant 27-1 score over the four matches, the team is looking forward to playing in front of its home crowd.
"It's great to be at home again," senior Treat Huey said. "Our first outdoor match should be a lot of fun. Miami is a great team, and we are just looking to come out and build on the three outdoor matches we had last week."
Even with its recent dominance, coach Brian Boland said he feels as though the team is getting better and improving with each match, which can only mean bad news for Cavalier opponents.
"We won in convincing fashion last week, but I still think there are some things that we need to improve on," Boland said. "We've done a good job with these last couple days of practice, particularly in the area of doubles, so I am pretty pleased overall with where we are at."
The Cavaliers took all four doubles points during their road stretch but only swept all three matches once.
"The chemistry has been a little bit off in terms of our doubles teams," Boland said. "But I think we'll see a big improvement this weekend. We have spent a lot of time on that the last couple days, so I'm looking forward to see how things go this weekend. The doubles is critical for us in terms of our overall success."
By contrast, Virginia's singles play has been superb since its indoor national championship. Helping matters lately has been Huey's play: The senior dropped two matches in a row at the National Team Indoor Championships in Seattle but has since run off nine consecutive victories, bringing his ranking back up to No. 28 in the country.
"In Seattle, I was struggling because the courts were a lot faster there," Huey said. "I feel like my game has gotten a lot better outdoors. I've been able to run balls down and use my speed on the court."
On the other side, junior Dominic Inglot will look to get back on track this weekend. After shaking off some physical ailments, Inglot has taken some time to get back to normal.
"He's physically fine," Boland said. "It's just a matter of Dom being able to get the repetitions, which he has been able to do this week. It's taken him a little more time to get where he needs to these past few weeks, but he'll be fine. It's only a matter of time."
The match everyone will be looking forward to this afternoon will be at No. 1 singles, when senior and top-ranked Somdev Devvarman takes on No. 4 Daniel Vallverdu of Miami. Devvarman comes into the match with a 26-1 record, while Vallverdu is 20-3.
"It should be a good match," Boland said. "Daniel is a great player. He has a big game off the ground and Somdev the same, so it should be some good firepower and some fun tennis for people to watch. It's great for Somdev. He loves the competition and is always up for a challenge."
The match today is set to begin at 3 p.m. at the Snyder Tennis Center. Virginia returns to action again at home Sunday afternoon when it takes on No. 10 Florida State at 1 p.m.
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