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Virginia Earns Top Seed in ACC Tournament With 5-2 Win over Wake
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April 15, 2016
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – The No. 1 Virginia men’s tennis team (21-3, 10-1 ACC) logged a 5-2 victory over No. 7 Wake Forest (25-5, 9-2 ACC) on Friday (April 15) at the Snyder Tennis Center.
The Cavaliers secured the doubles point and won their first four singles matches before Wake closed out the match with wins on No. 2 and No. 6.
The two teams were tied for first place in the conference standings heading into the match. With the victory, the Cavaliers wrapped up the No. 1 seed in next week’s ACC Men’s Tennis Championships, being held at the Cary Tennis Center in Cary, N.C., and are guaranteed to finish with at least a share of the ACC regular-season title, the 13th-consecutive year the Cavaliers have finished atop the ACC standings.
“This was a big match for us and I am really proud of how the players played,” said Virginia head coach Brian Boland. “Winning the doubles point gave us a huge amount of momentum as it was really close, coming down to the wire. We followed that by getting off to an unbelievable start in singles. We were rolling and just really took advantage of that momentum, which carried just far enough into the match for us to get five points. We lost a couple of points at the end that were really competitive, but overall it was a great day.”
Senior Ryan Shane (Falls Church, Va.) celebrated his birthday by logging a pair of key victories for the Cavaliers. In doubles, junior Thai-Son Kwiatkowski (Charlotte, N.C.) and senior Mac Styslinger (Birmingham, Ala.) won 6-3 at No. 2 but junior J.C. Aragone (Yorba Linda, Calif.) and sophomore Collin Altamirano (Sacramento, Calif.) fell 6-2 at No. 3, leaving the point to be decided at Shane’s No. 1 court. Shane and junior Luca Corinteli (Alexandria, Va.) were tied 6-6 with Skander Mansouri and Christian Seraphim, with the match having to be decided in a tiebreaker. Shane and Corinteli won the tiebreaker 7-5 to give the Cavaliers the doubles point.
Shane, who is currently ranked No. 9 in singles, followed that with a dominant 6-1, 6-2 victory over No. 14 Mansouri at the No. 1 court, the only straight-set victory for the Cavaliers in singles in the match. The victory was the 100th singles win in Shane’s Cavalier career.
At No. 4 singles, Aragone won his first set 6-0, but fell 6-3 in the second, coming back to win 6-1 in his third set to give UVA a 3-0 lead.
Sophomore Henrik Wiersholm, playing at No. 5, lost his first set 7-5 to Seraphim but rallied with 6-3 and 6-1 victories in his final two sets to secure the victory for the Cavaliers. Wiersholm had also won the deciding match when Wake and Virginia met earlier this season in the ITA National Team Indoors, also downing Seraphim to give the Cavaliers that 4-3 victory. Wiersholm has now won 14-straight singles matches as he snapped a 12-match win streak by Seraphim.
Kwiatkowski battled back after losing his second set to defeat Jon Ho 6-2, 4-6, 6-3 at No. 3 to give Virginia a 5-0 lead.
Wake Forest’s Petros Chrysochos, currently ranked No. 21 in the country, downed Altamirano, who is ranked 39th, 1-6, 7-6, 6-4 at the No. 2 court. Corinteli fell 7-5, 4-6, 6-4 at No. 6.
The Virginia women’s tennis team was also playing at Snyder at the same time, downing Pitt 6-1. The men’s and women’s matches were played in front of a combined 1,142 fans.
“I am so grateful to all of the fans,” Boland said. “I have always said we have the best fans in college tennis. They proved that today. There is a lot of support here in Charlottesville and among the student body for what these guys do and the hard work they put in. I was excited for our guys to be able to play in this environment.”
The Cavaliers’ final regular-season home match will be on Sunday, April 17 at 1 p.m. against Miami. If Virginia wins, the Cavaliers will win the regular-season ACC title outright. If the Cavaliers lose and Wake Forest wins its Sunday match at Louisville, the two teams will share the regular-season title.
Sunday’s match is also Senior Day. Virginia’s three seniors, Shane, Styslinger and Jonathan Cornish (London, England) will be honored in a brief ceremony between doubles and singles matches for Senior Day. Sunday’s match will include a Sunday Sundae bar with free ice cream for the fans.
#1 Virginia 5, #7 Wake Forest 2
Singles competition
1. #9 Ryan Shane (VA) def. #14 Skander Mansouri (WF) 6-1, 6-2
2. #21 Petros Chrysochos (WF) def. #39 Collin Altamirano (VA) 1-6, 7-6, 6-4
3. #6 Thai-Son Kwiatkowski (VA) def. Jon Ho (WF) 6-2, 4-6, 6-3
4. #118 J.C. Aragone (VA) def. #122 Romain Bogaerts (WF) 6-0, 3-6, 6-1
5. Henrik Wiersholm (VA) def. Christian Seraphim (WF) 5-7, 6-3, 6-1
6. Dennis Uspensky (WF) def. Luca Corinteli (VA) 7-5, 4-6, 6-4
Doubles competition
1. #3 Ryan Shane/Luca Corinteli (VA) def. #14 Skander Mansouri/Christian Seraphim (WF) 7-6
2. #10 Thai-Son Kwiatkowski/Mac Styslinger (VA) def. #76 Petros Chrysochos/Jon Ho (WF) 6-3
3. Romain Bogaerts/Dennis Uspensky (WF) def. J.C. Aragone/Collin Altamirano (VA) 6-2
Order of finish:Doubles (3,2,1); Singles (1,4,5,3,2,6)
T-3:18 A-1142