The No. 66 Virginia women's tennis team enjoyed a fairly successful Spring Break, splitting a couple of crucial ACC road matches this past weekend after a week off.
The Cavaliers swept No. 52 N.C. State 7-0 at the J.W. Isenhour Tennis Center Sunday to close out the break on a strong note after falling to No. 37 Wake Forest 2-5the day before at the Wake Forest Indoor Tennis Center.
The loss to Wake Forest (5-5, 2-0 ACC) marked the Cavaliers' (6-5, 2-1 ACC) first ACC loss of the season. In doubles, Virginia's No. 1 doubles tandem of junior Amanda Rales and junior Lara Alexander recorded an 8-4 win; however, the Cavaliers fell at No. 2 and No. 3 doubles 6-8 and 5-8, respectively, ultimately losing the opening point. The team's struggles in the match, particularly in the doubles point, can be attributed to mental mistakes.
"I think we had some moments in the doubles against Wake Forest where we really, really slipped up and some of that was emotional," Virginia coach Mark Guilbeau said. "Some of that was just strictly nothing to do with tennis skills, it had to do with just emotions and with focus and concentration."
In singles, the Demon Deacons continued their dominance, winning four of the six matches, with Rales and senior Lindsey Pereira being the only Cavaliers who came out on top. Pereira's match was particularly interesting: After losing the first set 6-2, she came back to win the second 7-5 and ground out a 10-8 win in the third and final set to come away with the victory.
Although the loss was disappointing for the Cavaliers, they were able to use it as a learning experience.
"We spent an hour and half on the bus after that talking about taking your time and not starting points until you're ready," Guilbeau said. "What went wrong with Wake, we corrected, and that was the most important part of it. So it was good to do better on Sunday because of Saturday. Hopefully we don't have to have that type of learning process each time, though."
The improvement showed against the Wolfpack (7-4, 1-1 ACC), as Virginia went on to defeat its highest-ranked opponent this season.
In doubles, the Cavaliers prevailed on the No. 2 and No. 3 courts with an 8-3 and 9-7 score, respectively. Even though Virginia won the point, it suffered its only loss of the afternoon at No. 1 doubles, falling by an 8-4 score.
In singles, the Cavaliers swept their opponents. Despite the sweep, many of the matches were close and hard-fought, particularly the match at the No. 1 court, where No. 124-ranked Rales defeated No. 112-ranked sophomore Daria Petrovic on a third set tiebreaker. Rales cruised fairly easily in the first set, taking it 6-2, but Petrovic fought back in the second set, winning by the same score and setting up the decisive third set in which Rales just barely edged out Petrovic.
"Definitely at the end there, literally every point did matter," Rales said. "I got down at least two match points ... fortunately, before those points, and really every point, I feel like I tried to compose myself, and really take my time and take a couple deep breaths because I definitely was nervous."
Virginia will continue its road trip this weekend when it travels to Baylor tomorrow and TCU Saturday. The Cavaliers will be heavy underdogs in both matches, particularly against No. 5 Baylor. The Bears' powerful arsenal boasts five nationally ranked singles players. Rales said Virginia acknowledges the tough tests it faces and is looking forward to fighting hard this weekend.
"Being an underdog can be a really great position sometimes, and I think [the Baylor match] will be a chance for us to kind of see how much better we've gotten over the last couple months," Rales said. "We can really push and make them beat us, instead of beating ourselves, and you never know what can happen when you do that"
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