This weekend, the Virginia men’s tennis team traveled to Winston-Salem, N.C., to compete in the Wake Forest Invitational — the team’s last non-ITA event of the season. 15 other schools participated, and Virginia sent three players to compete in doubles and singles from Friday to Sunday. Freshman Keegan Rice finished with a strong 3-1 singles record, while junior Ty Switzer and graduate student James Hopper had a hard fought doubles weekend.
Friday saw a few tough matches for the Cavaliers. Switzer and Hopper split their doubles matches, narrowly falling to a South Carolina pair 7-6 but bouncing back to defeat a team from College of Charleston 6-4.
The singles matches also got off to a rough start, with both Rice and Switzer dropping their first battle. Rice fell in a three-set match to Auburn junior William Nolan, while Switzer lost in straight sets to junior Esteve Agusti from James Madison.
Saturday, Switzer and Hopper lost to a UNC Greensboro team 6-3, but Rice had a dominant day in singles. He defeated Cleveland State junior Carl Gedlitschka in three sets and Auburn sophomore Nicholas Heng in another three-setter. Switzer, despite fighting hard, lost two close singles matches.
Sunday was another solid singles day for Virginia. Rice continued his dominant form, winning 6-1, 6-3 over Wake Forest Freshman Nikola Parichkov. Switzer came back from losing his first two singles matches, managing to close out the weekend on a high note, defeating freshman Zach Fleishman from James Madison 6-2, 6-4.
The Wake Forest Invitational proved to be a slightly challenging weekend for Virginia, with strong competition from a wide variety of schools. Doubles experienced some trouble, but only one team competed and the matches being restricted to one set makes winning difficult. Additionally, sophomore Dylan Dietrich, a strong singles and doubles player, missed the invitational for the Charlottesville ATP Challenger.
Next up, the competition will only intensify as a select few Cavaliers will compete for NCAA Championship spots at the ITA Sectionals, which is being held from Friday to Sunday in Chapel Hill, N.C.
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