Somdev Devvarman Named VaSID State Player of the Year
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CHARLOTTESVILLE The Virginia men’s tennis team headlined the 2008 Virginia Sports Information Directors (VaSID) All-State Tennis Team, released Wednesday. Somdev Devvarman (Chennai, India) was named State Player of the Year, Brian Boland was named State Coach of the Year and the Cavaliers had seven players earn All-State honors.
Devvarman was named State Player of the Year for the third consecutive season. This season, he repeated as NCAA Singles Champion, becoming the 13th player in the 124-year history of the tournament to win consecutive titles, and just the fourth to do so in the past 50 years. Devvarman, the ITA National Player of the Year, ended the season with a 44-1 singles record, tying the school record for wins in a season he set a year before. He is believed to be the first NCAA Singles Champion to finish the season with one or fewer losses since UCLA’s Jimmy Connors went undefeated in 1971. Since then, NCAA Champions have included Georgia’s Pernfors, Stanford’s John McEnroe, Stanford’s Tim Mayotte, and Texas’s Kevin Curren, all of whom went on to be ranked in the world top 20, but lost multiple times in college during their championship season.
Boland was named State Coach of the Year for the third consecutive season. The 2008 ITA National Coach of the Year, Boland led Virginia to the best season in school history. The Cavaliers finished the year 32-1 and reached the NCAA Semifinals for the second consecutive year. In February, the Cavaliers won the ITA National Team Indoor Championship, the first national team tennis title in ACC history. Virginia was ranked No. 1 in the ITA rankings every week of the season and won its fourth ACC Championship in the past five years.
Devvarman was one of three Cavaliers named first team All-State, joined by Treat Huey (Alexandria, Va.) and Dominic Inglot (London, England). The doubles teams of Devvarman and Huey and Sanam Singh (Chandigarh, India) and Michael Shabaz (Fairfax, Va.) were also named to the first team. Ted Angelinos (Athens, Greece) and the doubles team of Inglot and Houston Barrick (Brentwood, Tenn.) were named to the second team.
2008 VaSID MEN’S TENNIS UNIVERSITY DIVISION ALL-STATE TEAM
FIRST TEAM
Alex Cojanu Sr. Hallandale, Fla. William and Mary
Somdev Devvarman Sr. Chennai, India Virginia
Treat Huey Sr. Alexandria, Va. Virginia
Dominic Inglot Jr. London, England Virginia
Albert Larregola Sr. Lleida, Spain Virginia Tech
Martin Sayer Jr. Hong Kong Radford
Sanam Singh/ Michael Shabaz Virginia
Somdev Devvarman/Treat Huey Virginia
Keziel Juneau/Alex Cojanu William and Mary
SECOND TEAM
Ted Angelinos Sr. Athens, Greece Virginia
Nicolas Delgado de Robles Jr. Madrid, Spain Virginia Tech
Damien Lacombe Sr. Perigueux, France Virginia Commonwealth
Ivan Salec Fr. Oroslavje, Croatia Radford
Alex Seleznev Sr. Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic Old Dominion
Miroslav Vlek Jr. Vyskov, Czech Republic Norfolk State
Dominic Inglot/Houston Barrick Virginia
Alex Cojanu/Domic Pagon William and Mary
Emil Lindgren/ Sebastien Ripoll Virginia Commonwealth
Martin Sayer/Zack Watson Radford
* – two doubles teams tied in votes for the final spot on the second team, meaning only four teams were selected for the second team as a result
PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Somdev Devvarman, Virginia
COACH OF THE YEAR: Brian Boland, Virginia
ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Ivan Salec, Radford