In 2023, Virginia was the national champion. This year, it lost in the ACC Championships and failed to advance to the NCAA Semifinals. However, despite an underwhelming finish this season, the future is incredibly bright for Virginia men’s tennis. The team has plenty of returning talent that will be complemented by a stellar class of incoming recruits.
After advancing past the NCAA Super Regional to the NCAA Quarterfinals May 10, No. 2 Virginia men’s tennis pushed to keep momentum going in the hopes of defeating No. 6 Wake Forest and advancing to the NCAA Semifinals. Unfortunately, the Cavaliers could not keep up with the Demon Deacons and fell to them 4-1 May 16.
Looking back at the ACC Championship, Virginia faced Florida State — an opponent ranked lower than them that had managed to upset two strong teams before coming to the championship. The Seminoles had defeated both the second and third seed teams before facing the Cavaliers, so they had built strong momentum that would have been hard to defeat by any team.
The loss to Florida State was notably a close contest. The results for the entire ACC Tournament came down to the third set on the top court between two top-10 players in the nation — then-No. 4 senior Chris Rodesch and then-No. 5 senior Antoine Cornut-Chauvinc.
Returning to the NCAA Tournament, which is always seen as a marathon of a competition, the Cavaliers had initially started very strongly. They defeated both NJIT and VCU 4-0 in order to advance to the NCAA Round of 16, completely shutting out their opponents to ensure their victories. Advancing to the NCAA Quarterfinals was also relatively easy for Virginia, with a 4-1 victory over South Carolina.
However, once the Cavaliers arrived at the NCAA Quarterfinals match against Wake Forest, they were missing a key player — Rodesch. Their top-ranked singles player had to be scratched from the lineup due to illness, affecting both the doubles and singles lineups for the matches.
Many of the singles courts had to go to a third set to decide the match, so the results were similar to the ACC Championship — Virginia pushed to win each court but unfortunately were defeated in the end.
Looking to the 2025 season, it is going to be hard to replace all of the fantastic athletes that are finished with their collegiate career — Rodesch, Schulenburg, senior Iñaki Montes de la Torre, senior Alexander Kiefer and graduate student Edoardo Graziani. However, this will allow some new players to step up and fill the roles that are opening up.
Dietrich will continue to improve after a stellar rookie campaign, as he advanced to the NCAA Singles Round of 16 before ultimately falling to No. 30 sophomore Jack Anthrop of Ohio State. On top of his impressive achievement of making it far individually, Dietrich was also named ACC Freshman of the Year April 25.
Another player that has been pretty consistent all season — and still has a few more years of eligibility — is sophomore Måns Dahlberg. Dahlberg had some impressive feats this season — going 8-1 in singles in ACC play and having his first win against a top-100 ranked singles player, No. 28 sophomore Jonah Braswell of Texas.
With these two consistent individuals returning in the fall to help lead the team to more victories, the Cavaliers still show promise. It is important to note, however, that these two might not be enough to fill the gap that will be left by the five departing players. Therefore, it will be important that Coach Andres Pedroso takes advantage of his top-ranked recruiting class for the 2024-25 season.
A few of the athletes that are a part of this renowned incoming class are Joao Fonseca, Rafael Jodar and Keegan Rice. Fonseca was ranked No. 1 in the ITF Junior Rankings in 2023 and has reached a rank of No. 226 globally despite only being 17 years old. Jodar and Rice have also been nationally ranked — No. 11 and No. 32 respectively — and help round out the internationally diverse group.
With key players returning and new additions joining the team, it will be important for everyone to work on building skills and confidence in the offseason in order to maintain the reputation that the Cavaliers have as being a men’s tennis powerhouse.
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