Virginia had a very successful showing at the ITA Atlantic Regional, which began Friday and concluded Tuesday with the singles and doubles finals. A total of eight Cavaliers competed at Charlottesville’s Boar’s Head Resort, many of them high seeds and strong contenders. Building off this advantage, three Cavaliers punched their tickets to the NCAA Singles and Doubles Championships. Seniors Melodie Collard and Elaine Chervinsky won the doubles title, and graduate student Sara Ziodato qualified by finishing runner-up in singles.
Play began Friday, with seven singles victories. Collard, the No. 4 seed in singles, breezed through her first-round match. Junior Annabelle Xu, the No. 1 seed, did the same. Five other Cavaliers also captured straight-set victories.
Doubles began Saturday, with all four Virginia pairs advancing to the round of 16. That came as no surprise, as each Virginia doubles pair was seeded in the top five.
Saturday also saw eight singles wins for the Cavaliers, with four players winning two matches apiece to advance to the quarterfinals. Freshman Martina Genis Salas, graduate student Sara Ziodato, Xu and Chervinsky made up that group, with Ziodato as the No. 2 seed and Chervinsky as the No. 3 seed. Sophomore Bianca Pico Navarro, sophomore Zara Larke and Collard were each knocked out in tight three-set matches by unseeded opponents.
The singles performances remained steady Sunday. Xu, Chervinsky and Ziodato each advanced to the semifinals, this time in tighter fashion — Xu and Chervinsky in three-set matches and Ziodato in a two-set match that included a tiebreaker. The doubles pair of Collard and Chervinsky, and that of junior Meggie Navarro and Ziodato, moved to the semifinals, picking up impressive wins of 8-0 and 8-3, respectively.
The singles competition proved more difficult Monday for Virginia. Xu fell to Virginia Tech junior Ozlem Uslu, the No. 8 seed. Chervinsky and Ziodato battled each other, but Ziodato got the victory to advance to the finals and clinch a spot in the NCAA individual championships. Collard and Chervinsky, as well as Navarro and Ziodato, won their matches to set up a faceoff in the final.
Tuesday morning, Uslu defeated Ziodato in a close two-set match, 7-5 and 6-1. The Cavalier doubles pairs, ranked only a seed apart, confronted each other in the doubles final. Collard and Chervinsky emerged victorious with a 6-4, 6-1 win, qualifying for the NCAA individual championships. Navarro and Ziodato, on the other hand, will have another opportunity to compete for one of the NCAA slots at ITA Sectionals, being held Nov. 7-10 in Chapel Hill, N.C.
As the individual season nears its end, ITA Regionals showcased the Cavaliers’ dominance. The upcoming ITA Sectionals and ITA Masters tournaments will prove more competitive, but with three players qualifying for the NCAA championships, this tournament set a promising tone for the Cavaliers moving forward. Up next, Virginia will head to the Tennessee Invitational in Knoxville, Tenn., from Friday to Sunday.
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