No. 12 Virginia Plays at No. 13 Notre Dame on Friday
Friday Live Video | Sunday Live Scores
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – The No. 12 Virginia men’s tennis team (4-0, 1-0 ACC) takes on No. 13 Notre Dame (3-0, 0-0 ACC) on Friday, Feb. 1 at 5 p.m. in Notre Dame, Ind. The Cavaliers close out the weekend by playing at Kentucky (4-2, 0-0 SEC) on Sunday, Feb. 3 at 1 p.m.
Live scoring and streaming video will be available for the Notre Dame match with just live scoring available against Kentucky. Those links will be posted on VirginiaSports.com.
Virginia moved up to No. 12 in the Oracle ITA Rankings after winning a pair of ITA Kickoff Weekend matches in College Station, Texas. The Cavaliers opened play with a 4-2 victory over California before taking down host Texas A&M, 4-3, in the final.
Junior Carl Söderlund (Stockholm, Sweden) was named the ACC Men’s Singles Player of the Week for his efforts in last weekend’s victories. In Saturday’s match against Cal, he picked up a quick 6-3, 6-1 victory over Jacob Brumm. In Sunday’s finale, he helped clinch the doubles point, winning a tiebreaker on the top court, alongside sophomore Matthew Lord (Bloomfield, Conn.), to give UVA the 1-0 lead. He then clinched the 4-3 victory over the then-No. 9 Aggies by winning 1-6, 7-5, 6-3 on Court 2 over Juan Carlos Aguilar.
Söderlund is one of three Cavaliers to be undefeated in singles this spring. Redshirt senior Henrik Wiersholm (Kirkland, Wash.) improved to 4-0 with wins in the Cal and Texas A&M matches while freshman Ryan Goetz (Greenlawn, N.Y.) moved to 3-0 in dual matches and leads the Cavaliers with 14 singles victories overall this season.
Wiersholm and freshman Brandon Nakashima (San Diego, Calif.) are 3-0 at No. 3 doubles this season. Virginia has won the doubles point in three of its four matches this season and is 8-2 in doubles in dual matches.
Notre Dame rose from a No. 17 ranking last week to No. 13 this week after also winning its ITA Kickoff Weekend matches. The Irish blanked Vanderbilt, 4-0, before topping host Oklahoma, 4-2. No. 16 Alex Lebedev is one of five ranked singles players for the Irish, alongside No. 49 William Howells, No. 63 Richard Ciamarra, No. 86 Grayson Broadus and No. 112 Matt Gamble. Lebedev, who is 10-3 this season, was the consolation bracket champion at the ITA Fall National Championships.
Kentucky, playing at Columbia for ITA Kickoff Weekend, fell 4-3 to Dartmouth in the opener, but defeated Virginia Tech, 4-0, in the consolation match.
Virginia is 15-1 all-time against Notre Dame and has won the last 12 meetings. The Irish’s last victory in the series came in 2000. The Cavaliers hold a 7-6 advantage over Kentucky in the all-time series, with the Wildcats picking up a 4-1 victory last year in Charlottesville.
Virginia’s next home match is a showdown on Friday, Feb. 8 against No. 1 Wake Forest at 6 p.m. at the Boar’s Head Sports Club.