Virginia Finishes Regular Season on Sunday at Virginia Tech

April 20, 2018 –

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – The No. 43 Virginia men’s tennis team (12-10, 5-6 ACC) closes out the regular season by playing at No. 37 Virginia Tech (15-6, 5-5 ACC) on Sunday, April 22 at 1 p.m. at the Burrows-Burleson Tennis Center in Blacksburg, Va.

Live scoring will be available through a link on VirginiaSports.com.

The Cavaliers moved up to No. 43 in this week’s ITA rankings after splitting a pair of matches against ranked opponents last week, topping No. 23 N.C. State Friday and falling to No. 1 Wake Forest on Sunday.

For the second time this season, a Cavalier tandem was named the ACC Doubles Team of the Week with sophomore Carl Soderlund (Stockholm, Sweden) and freshman Matthew Lord (Bloomfield, Conn.) earning the accolade. The duo won a pair of matches on the top doubles court last week. In Friday’s match against NC State, the duo picked up a late break to top Alexis Galarneau and Michael Ogden, 7-5, to clinch the doubles point for the Cavaliers. On Sunday, the tandem dominated Ian Dempster and Skander Mansouri, the No. 17 duo from Wake Forest, 6-1. They cracked the ITA doubles rankings for the first time in this week’s listing, coming in at No. 43.

Söderlund moved up to a career-best No. 27 ranking this week in singles. Söderlund, who is 10-4 at No. 1 this spring, had won three straight matches over ranked opponents, including a 6-3, 6-1 win over No. 37 Alexis Galarneu of N.C. State, before being edged by No. 7 Borna Gojo in a third-set super tiebreaker on Sunday.

Junior Aswin Lizen (Douglas, Isle of Man) is ranked No. 32 in both singles and doubles this week. Lizen had won 10-straight singles matches before being edged by No. 5 Petros Chrysochos on Sunday.

Freshman Kyrylo Tsygura (North Potomac, Md.) went 2-0 in singles last weekend, picking up a win on court six on Friday and court five on Sunday, and has won three of his last four matches. Tsygura’s only loss in the last two weeks came while playing at No. 4 singles against Jose Garcia of Florida State, when he was edged in a third-set super tiebreaker.

Virginia Tech will host No. 41 Louisville on Friday morning before facing the Cavaliers on Sunday afternoon. The Hokies have won five-straight matches, including topping then-No. 12 Florida State, 4-3, handing the Seminoles their first conference loss of the season. Mitch Harper is the lone ranked singles player for Virginia Tech, with a 12-5 mark at No. 1. Carlo Donato, who is 19-8 at singles this season playing primarily on courts four and five, has won his last five matches.

The Cavaliers are 57-8 all-time against Virginia Tech and have won the last 14 meetings. The Hokies last win in the series came in 2003.

This match is part of the Commonwealth Clash, presented by Virginia529, a head-to-head, points-based competition between the athletic teams at University of Virginia and Virginia Tech. The Commonwealth Clash encourages a friendly, statewide rivalry between the two schools across all school-sponsored sports with 22 individual event points on the line. The school that accumulates 11.5 points or more will be crowned the winner and take home the Virginia529 Commonwealth Clash trophy. There is one point on the line in this game with Virginia Tech currently leading 8.5-6.5.

The postseason begins next week for the Cavaliers who will travel to Cary, N.C. to compete in the 2018 ACC Men’s Tennis Championship, being held April 25-29 at the Cary Tennis Center. Brackets and match-ups for the tournament will be announced Sunday evening. Ticket information is available on TheACC.com.