Two Cavaliers Selected for NCAA Singles Championship

May 2, 2018

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – Virginia men’s tennis sophomore Carl Soderlund (Stockholm, Sweden) and junior Aswin Lizen (Douglas, Isle of Man) have been selected to compete in the 2018 NCAA Men’s Tennis Singles Championship, being held May 23-28 at the Wake Forest Tennis Complex in Winston-Salem, N.C., after the conclusion of the team championship, which runs from May 18-22.

Söderlund and Lizen were at-large selections to the 64-player singles field. All singles players must have a minimum of 13 completed singles matches, with six matches in the spring, in order to be selected as an automatic qualifier or an at-large selection.

Söderlund played No. 1 singles this season for the Cavaliers, posting an 11-5 record on the top court. Last season’s ITA Atlantic Region Rookie of the Year has been ranked as high as No. 27 in singles this season.

Lizen had the highest win tally on the Cavaliers this season, posting a 30-6 record in singles. Ranked as high as No. 10 in singles this spring, Lizen went 12-1 in singles in the fall and opened the spring winning his first eight singles matches to start the year, 20-1. In the fall, Lizen was the ITA Atlantic Regional Singles champion and advanced to the Round of 16 at the Oracle ITA Fall National Championships. He was 18-5 this spring in singles, including posting a 9-3 record in conference matches.

This is the first appearance in the singles tournament for both players.

Virginia men’s tennis players have won four NCAA singles titles. Thai-Son Kwiatkowski was last year’s champion, following Ryan Shane (2015) and two-time champion Somdev Devvarman (2007-08).

The Cavaliers will not have a doubles team in the field of that championship.

All matches are best-of-three sets. No-ad scoring and seven-point tiebreaker at six-games-all will be used for all matches. Match-ups and the complete singles bracket will be announced closer to the start of the tournament.