No. 4 Virginia Travels To North Carolina For Matches Against Ranked Opponents

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. –  The No. 4 Virginia men’s tennis team (7-2, 1-0 ACC) heads to North Carolina for a pair of ACC matches, playing at No. 16 NC State (4-3, 2-0 ACC) on Friday, Feb. 26 at 3 p.m., and at No. 13 Wake Forest (9-2, 2-0 ACC) on Sunday, Feb. 28 at 1 p.m.

MATCH DETAILS

• Live scoring and video will be available through links on VirginiaSports.com

NOTING THE CAVALIERS

• Virginia remained at No. 4 in this week’s ITA team rankings after beginning the season ranked No. 22. Individual singles and doubles rankings have not been updated since the preseason
• Virginia opened ACC play last week with a 7-0 sweep of Boston College. The Virginia freshman played four of the slots in both singles and doubles
• Freshman Jeffrey von der Schulenburg (Zurich, Switzerland) played the No. 1 singles slot for the first time this season. He leads the team with an 8-1 record
• The all-freshman doubles team of von der Schulenburg and Iñaki Montes (Pamplona, Spain) have won their last three matches and lead the team with a 6-2 record
• Senior Matthew Lord (Bloomfield, Conn.) made his season debut at Boston College, partnering with freshman Alexander Kiefer (The Woodlands, Texas) to pick up a dominant 6-1 win at No. 3 doubles. Lord went 10-2 last season in doubles and was ranked No. 35 in the preseason ITA Doubles rankings
• Grad student Carl Söderlund (Stockholm, Sweden) is 4-0 this season at No. 1 singles with three abandoned matches. Söderlund closed out the 2020 campaign winning his last five matches, giving him a nine-match win streak heading into this weekend

NOTING No. 16 NC STATE

• NC State began the season ranked No. 8 after reaching a program-best No. 6 ranking last year
• NC State has lost to No. 12 Georgia and has suffered two losses to Tennessee, once when the Vols were ranked No. 13 (in the finale of ITA Kickoff Weekend) and No. 10 (at a road match in Knoxville)
• Alexis Galarneau is the reigning ACC Player of the Week after topping No. 6 Richard Ciamarra 6-0, 6-1 of Notre Dame last week. Galarneau is ranked No. 7 in singles
• The entirety of the Wolfpack’s 2019-2020 squad returned for the 2020-2021 season as Galarneau chose to use the extra year of eligibility granted to spring student-athletes by the NCAA after the 2020 season was canceled due to COVID-19
• Virginia leads the all-time series 57-15
• The last meeting between the two teams came in the final match of the 2020 ITA Kickoff Weekend regional in Charlottesville when 17 NC State defeated No. 23 Virginia to secure a spot in the ITA Division I National Men’s Team Indoor Championship for the first time in program history. The victory additionally marked the first time that NC State defeated the Cavaliers since 1999 as well as the first time since 1993 that NC State had beaten Virginia in Charlottesville

NOTING No. 13 WAKE FOREST

• Wake Forest has won its last six matches since falling 5-2 to Virginia in a non-conference meeting on Feb. 6
• In the Feb. 6 match, Wake Forest won the doubles point, but the Cavaliers won the top-five singles courts
• Rrezart Cungu, who has been playing primarily on Court 6, is Wake Forest’s lone ranked player at No. 92 in the ITA Singles rankings
• Henri Squire is 5-1 at the top singles court. His loss was against Carl Söderlund
• Wake Forest and Virginia are the only two ACC teams to have won NCAA Championships. UVA and Wake have won four of the last five titles (UVA in 2015-17 and Wake in 2018. There was not a champion in 2020)
• Wake Forest head coach Tony Bresky was the associate head coach at Virginia from 2002-10
• Heading into Friday’s match against Virginia Tech, Wake Forest is 68-1 in home matches since the start of the 2016-17 season
• Virginia leads the all-time series 63-25

ON THE HORIZON

• Virginia returns home next weekend to begin a stretch of eight-straight home matches spanning the entire month of March, beginning with Miami on Friday, March 5 at 2 p.m.