No. 6 Virginia Men's Tennis Upset by No. 20 Texas

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Feb. 12, 2006

CHARLOTTESVILLE – The No. 6 ranked Virginia men’s tennis team had its school record 20-match home winning streak snapped as the Cavaliers were upset by No. 20 Texas 4-3 Sunday afternoon at the Indoor Tennis Stadium at the Boar’s Head Sports Club. The Cavaliers fall to 7-3 on the season with the loss, while the Longhorns improve to 3-1.

The Cavaliers opened the match strong, sweeping all three doubles matches to take a 1-0 lead. The No. 25 ranked team of Darrin Cohen (Lafayette, Calif.) and Doug Stewart (Malibu, Calif.) downed Michael Venus and Miguel Reyes Varela 8-4 at No. 3 doubles. At No. 2 doubles, Rylan Rizza (Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif.) and Nick Meythaler (Owensboro, Ky.) clinched the point for Virginia with their 8-5 win over Roger Gubser and Hubert Chodkiewicz. The No. 35 ranked team of Somdev Devvarman (Chennai, India) and Treat Huey (Alexandria, Va.) completed the sweep with a tiebreaker win at the No. 1 position over Callum Beale and Travis Helgeson.

The Longhorns rallied in singles to take four of the six matches to capture the dual match win. Beale tied the match at 1-1 when he upset No. 10 ranked Devvarman in straight sets at No. 2 singles. The Cavaliers retook the lead at 2-1 when No. 6 ranked Huey completed a 7-5, 6-2 win over Reyes Varela at No. 4 singles. Texas once again tied the match when No. 44 Helgeson defeated Stewart at the No. 1 position. The Longhorns took a 3-2 lead when Milan Mihailovic defeated Marko Miklo (Bratislava, Slovakia) in three sets at No. 5 singles. The final two matches remaining on the courts split, finishing within seconds of each other as Gubser defeated Rizza to clinch the match for Texas and Jarrett Chirico (Sarasota, Fla.) won at No. 6 for Virginia over Michael Venus.

Virginia had not lost at home since a 4-2 loss to TCU on April 4, 2004, 20 home matches ago. The loss also snapped a 28-match win streak for the Cavaliers when they won the doubles point.

“Give Texas a lot of credit, they are a great team and deserved to win today,” said Virginia head coach Brian Boland. “I thought we played really well in doubles, but unfortunately we couldn’t take that momentum into singles. At this point in the season, wins and losses aren’t the most important thing. We need to continue to improve and make progress as a team. We have played the toughest ten match stretch to open the season for any team in the country and hopefully that will make us battle-tested later in the season.”

The Cavaliers will travel to Seattle, Wash. next weekend for the ITA National Team Indoor Championship. The No. 6 seeded Cavaliers will open play against the host, Washington, the tournament’s No. 12 seed on Friday at 5:30 p.m. PT. The Cavaliers play the Huskies in the opening round because tournament rules prohibit teams from the same region from playing in the first round, which meant Virginia could not play No. 11 seed South Carolina.

No. 20 Texas 4, No. 6 Virginia 3

Doubles:
1) #35 Devvarman/Huey (UVa) def. Beale/Helgeson (UT) 9-8
2) Rizza/Meythaler (UVa) def. Gubser/Chodkiewicz (UT) 8-5
3. #25 Stewart/Cohen (UVa) def. Venus/Reyes Varela (UT) 8-4

Singles
1. #44 Travis Helgeson (UT) def. Doug Stewart (UVa) 7-5, 6-3
2. Callum Beale (UT) def. #10 Somdev Devvarman (UVa) 6-3, 6-3
3. #34 Roger Gubser (UT) def. #53 Rylan Rizza (UVa) 7-6, 7-6
4. #6 Treat Huey (UVa) def. Miguel Reyes Varela (UT) 7-5, 6-2
5. Milan Mihailovic (UT) def. #46 Marko Miklo (UVa) 6-1, 1-6, 6-1
6. Jarrett Chirico (UVa) def. Michael Venus (UT) 7-5, 7-5