No. 5 Virginia Faces No. 12 USC Monday in the NCAA Round of 16

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. –  The No. 5 Virginia men’s tennis team (23-2) will face No. 12 Southern California (22-6) in the Round of 16 of the 2021 NCAA Men’s Tennis Championship on Monday (May 17) at 4 p.m. at the USTA National Campus in Orlando, Fla.

The winner will advance to face either 13-South Carolina or 4-Texas on Thursday, May 20 in the quarterfinals.

FOLLOW ALONG

• Live scoring will be available for all matches
• TennisONE is your home for FREE livestream coverage of the 2021 NCAA DI Championships from May 16-May 28. Both the team and individual tournaments will be housed in the app, giving fans the opportunity to join the action from anywhere in the world. Download the app to watch the action

NOTING THE CAVALIERS

• The ACC-Champion Cavaliers are No.5 in the ITA computerized rankings and are the 5-seed in the Championship
• Virginia brings a 17-match win streak into Monday’s match. They have not lost a match since being edged 4-3 by Illinois on Valentine’s Day in the final day of the ITA Indoor Championship
• Head coach Andres Pedroso has picked up his second ACC Coach of the Year honor. He also earned it in 2019. The honor was not given in 2020
• Grad student Carl Söderlund (Stockholm, Sweden) repeated as the ACC Player of the Year, just the second Cavalier to win it twice. He was also the ACC Championship MVP and earned his third-straight All-ACC First Team honor
• Söderlund is 12-2 in singles this season with the best winning percentage on the team (.857)
• Söderlund will be the No. 7 seed in the NCAA Singles Championship as the automatic qualifier from the ACC. He will partner with junior William Woodall (Washington, D.C.) in the doubles tournament
• Senior Gianni Ross (Chicago, Ill.) has the longest active singles win streak on the team, winning his last nine completed matches, including picking up wins in the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament. He is 13-3 this season. He, like the team, has not lost since the final day of ITA Indoors (Feb. 14 vs. Illinois)
• Junior Ryan Goetz (Greenlawn, N.Y.) who has led the team in singles victories each of the last two years is currently tied for the team lead with a 17-5 record. Goetz went 3-0 in the ACC Championship and had a straight-set win against Stanford’s Timothy Sah in the NCAA Second Round
• Goetz is 8-1 on the No. 5 court this season
• Freshman Iñaki Montes (Pamplona, Spain) is 13-1 in his last 14 completed singles matches. This season, he has had a nine-match win streak in singles an 11-match win streak in doubles. He was named to the All-ACC Second Team
• Montes clinched the Cavaliers’ semifinal and championship victories in the ACC Championship
• Montes is 7-0 on the No. 4 court this season
• The Cavaliers are a combined 56-12 on the middle three courts this season (courts 3-5) with an .823 win percentage
• Virginia has only lost the doubles point six times this season, including winning 14-straight from the semifinals of ITA Indoors until they dropped it in the quarterfinals of the ACC Championship against Georgia Tech (Feb. 13-Apr. 23)
• Virginia has not lost a match this season after dropping the doubles point, including downing North Carolina in the ACC Championship final and Stanford in the NCAA Second Round
• Virginia’s doubles courts 2 and 3 are a combined 30-12 this season (.714 winning percentage)

VIRGINIA & THE NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Virginia has won four NCAA titles, including three-consecutive from 2015-17
• Carl Söderlund was a freshman on UVA’s 2017 NCAA Championship team
• Söderlund is just one of two players remaining in the tournament who has played in and won an NCAA Championship. Texas’ Chih Chi Huang is the other
• This is Virginia’s 17th-consecutive NCAA Championship appearance
• The Cavaliers have advanced to the NCAA quarterfinals in 14 of the last 15 championships, advanced to the semi-finals in 10 of the past 13 and played in the finals in six of the last nine
• Virginia has the second-highest winning percentage in the NCAA Championships, with a 68-17 record (.800 winning percentage); only Stanford is higher at 112-26 (.811). USC is third at 107-34 (.758)
• This is Andres Pedroso’s second trip to the Round of 16 as a head coach. He led the Cavaliers to a quarterfinal appearance in 2019
• Söderlund, Ross, Goetz and Woodall were all part of the team that played in the quarterfinals at Lake Nona in 2019
• Virginia faced the Pac-12 regular-season champions in the second round of the tournament and will face the Pac-12 tournament champs in the Round of 16

SCOUTING USC

• Southern California has won more NCAA titles (21) than any other team in the history of the sport. UVA’s four titles rank fifth
• This is the 42^nd NCAA Championship appearance for the Trojans
• USC is 6-1 against Virginia in the NCAA Championship including knocking the Cavaliers out of the tournament in four straight years (2009-12) and again in 2014
• USC and Virginia met in 2011 and 2012 in the national championship finals, with the Trojans winning 4-3 in 2011 and 4-2 in 2012
• In 2014, the last time they met in the NCAA Championship, USC won 5-1 in the semifinals en route to their title run
• UVA’s lone win was in the 2007 quarterfinals
• The Trojans opened 2021 ranked No. 1 in the nation —  the same spot it wrapped the shortened 2020 season, USC is ranked No. 12 in the last ITA computerized rankings, the same as its tournament seeding
• Four Trojans are ranked in singles: Daniel Cukierman (49), Riley Smith (52), Mor Bulis (112) and Stefan Dostanic (116). Cukierman/R. Smith are ranked No. 10 in doubles.
• Cukierman has a career-high singles ranking of No. 1 (2019-20 season)
• USC’s winningest player to date is newcomer Lodewijk Weststrate with a 24-4 record. He is projected to play on court five
• The overall series record is 6-3 in USC’s favor, 6-1 in the NCAA Championship and 0-2 at ITA Indoors
• The last meeting between the two teams was a 4-1 victory by UVA during the 2019 National Team Indoors. UVA also won 4-2 in the final of the 2013 National Team Indoors

ON THE HORIZON

• The men’s quarterfinals will take place on Thursday, May 20. Men’s and women’s semi-finals will be held on May 21 and both team championships contested on Saturday, May 22
• The NCAA Singles and Doubles Championships will run from May 23-28