Cavaliers Now

UVA Women's Tennis Knocks Off No. 1 North Carolina in ACC Semifinals 4-2

The Cavaliers upset the No. 1-seeded Tar Heels on Saturday to advance to the Final of the ACC Championship

Matt Newton

The Cavaliers and Tar Heels had met twice this season - once at the ITA Team Indoor National Championships in February and again in Chapel Hill on March 6th. Both matches ended the same way: a 4-1 victory for UNC. North Carolina entered the ACC Championships as five-time defending champions and as the No. 1 seed in the field. On Saturday afternoon in Rome, Georgia, the No. 4-seeded Virginia women's tennis team pulled the massive upset over North Carolina, shocking the Tar Heels with a 4-2 victory in the semifinals to secure a spot in the ACC Final on Sunday. 

UNC's Alle Sanford and Carson Tanguilig opened doubles play with a 6-1 victory over Sofia Munera and Natasha Subhash, but the Cavaliers evened the score with a 6-4 win by Elaine Chervinsky and Amber O'Dell against Reilly Tran and Cameron Morra. On court 1, Virginia's team of Emma Navarro and Hibah Shaikh, the eighth-ranked doubles duo in the country, faced off with the No. 1-ranked doubles pairing of Elizabeth Scotty and Fiona Crawley. In a back-and-forth affair, Navarro and Shaikh prevailed with a 7-5 win to capture the doubles point. 

Navarro and Morra, respectively ranked the No. 1 and No. 4 singles players in women's tennis, met again on court 1 in singles play. Navarro beat Morra again in dominant fashion, dropping just a single game in a 6-1, 6-0 victory. 

UNC got on the board as Carson Tanguilig beat Hibah Shaikh 6-1, 6-4 and then Fiona Crawley defeated Sofia Munera 6-3, 6-2 to tie the match at two points apiece. 

UVA went back in front as Sara Ziodato downed Anika Yarlagadda 6-4, 6-1 to make it 3-2. 

The match was decided on court 2, where UVA's No. 42 Natasha Subhash went up against No. 22 Elizabeth Scotty of UNC. Subhash took the opening set 6-4, but Scotty roared back to win the second 6-2. Subhash came back in the third set and beat Scotty 6-4 to clinch the upset victory for the Wahoos. This is Virginia's first win over North Carolina since 2016, snapping an eight-match losing streak. 

“I am just so incredibly proud of this group," said UVA head coach Sara O'Leary. "I think they just handled all the adversity that they faced today so well and they did it with such composure and determination." 

Virginia advances to the ACC Championship match for the first time since 2015. UVA will take on No. 2 seed Duke on Sunday at 2pm. 

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Matt Newton
MATT NEWTON

Matt launched Virginia Cavaliers On SI in August of 2021 and has since served as the site's publisher and managing editor, covering all 23 NCAA Division I sports teams at the University of Virginia. He is from Downingtown, Pennsylvania and graduated from UVA in May of 2021.

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