Virginia Tennis Teams Advance to Semifinals at ACC Championships
The Virginia men's and women's tennis teams both won their quarterfinal matches at the ACC Tennis Championships on Friday in Rome, Georgia.
Virginia men's tennis, the No. 1 seed and defending ACC Champions, swept No. 8 seed Florida State 4-0 on Friday morning.
The Cavaliers opened the match with strong performances on each of the three courts in doubles play. Inaki Montes took down Maks Silagy and Joshua Dous Karpenschif 6-2 and then Chris Rodesch and Bar Botzer put together a perfect 6-0 effort to defeat Loris Pourroy and Andreja Petrovic 6-0 and clinch the doubles point for UVA. Gianni Ross and Alexander Kiefer were leading 5-2 when doubles play was suspended.
Botzer continued to play well in singles action, dispatching Youcef Rihane 6-1, 6-2 to give the Cavaliers a 2-0 lead. On court 1, No. 23 Chris Rodesch got the better of No. 58 Loris Pourroy to move Virginia to within one point of clinching the match.
Inaki Montes was the one to finish off the victory for UVA with a 6-3, 6-1 win over Andreja Petrovic.
Virginia advances to the semifinals and will face No. 4 seed Louisville on Saturday at 10am looking to secure a spot in the finals. UVA is seeking its 14th ACC Men's Tennis Championship in program history.
No. 4 seed UVA women's tennis fell behind No. 5 NC State 2-0, but rallied to win four straight singles matches and secured a spot in the semifinals.
In a showdown between two of the top ten doubles pairings in the country, NC State's second-ranked duo of Jaeda Daniel and Nell Miller defeated No. 7 Emma Navarro and Hibah Shaikh 6-3. The Wolfpack clinched the doubles point behind a 6-1 victory by Sophie Abrams and Priska Nugroho over Elaine Chervinsky and Amber O'Dell.
NC State built a 2-0 lead to start singles play as No. 40 Abigail Rencheli downed No. 42 Natasha Subhash in straight sets, 6-4, 6-3.
Jaeda Daniel and Emma Navarro faced off again on court 1 in singles play. Navarro, still the ITA's No. 1 ranked women's tennis player, won the first set 6-3, dropped the second set to the No. 12-ranked Daniel 3-6, and then won the deciding set without dropping a single game to win UVA's first point of the day.
Similarly, on court 6, Virginia's Sara Ziodato split the first two matches against Sophie Abrams, but won the deciding third set to pick up a 6-4, 4-6, 6-2 victory and tie the match at two points apiece.
Hibah Shaikh won a hard-fought opening set against Amelia Rajecki 7-5, but then dropped the second set 4-6. She then dominated the third set 6-0 to give the Cavaliers their first lead of the game.
Elaine Chervinsky was responsible for clinching the victory for Virginia, as she knocked off No. 66 Priska Nugroho in another three-set thriller, 6-4, 4-6, 6-3.
Virginia advances to the ACC semifinals and will face No. 1 seed North Carolina on Saturday at 2pm.
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