Doubles Prowess Instrumental in Hoos’ Success

By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Good things tend to follow for the University of Virginia women’s tennis team when it wins the doubles point in a dual match.

The No. 7 seed in the NCAA tournament, ACC runner-up Virginia has won the doubles point in 20 of its 27 dual matches this season. Not coincidentally, perhaps, the Wahoos (22-5) are headed to the Sweet Sixteen for the fifth straight season.

“We like doubles a lot,” head coach Sara O’Leary said. “We practice doubles a good amount, and I feel like we’re quite organized with our doubles. We’ve been fortunate enough to have teams that have been able to play consistently together pretty much all season.”

The Hoos hosted two matches this weekend at the Boar’s Head Resort. UVA blanked Fairleigh Dickinson 4-0 in the first round Friday and ousted Illinois 4-1 on Saturday.

Against FDU, UVA’s doubles teams at No. 1 (Elaine Chervinsky and Melodie Collard) and No. 3 (Sara Ziodato and Meggie Navarro) each won 6-0, and Martina Genis Salas and Annabelle Xu were up 5-2 at No. 2 when the point was clinched.

The Cavaliers’ doubles lineup stayed the same against the Fighting Illini. At No. 3, Navarro and Ziodato finished first, winning 6-2, and Genis Salas and Xu closed out their match two minutes later, winning 6-3. Chervinsky and Collard were leading 4-3 in their match when play was stopped.

“The doubles point is so important,’ Navarro said, “because obviously if you win the doubles point you come out a little stronger in singles. There’s a little less pressure on the line.”

Ziodato said: “I feel like we always go out there trying to start off strong and setting the tone with the doubles point. This definitely brings energy leading up to singles, but our mentality is always the same regardless if we win the doubles point or not.”

In late November, Chervinsky and Collard became the first team from UVA to win an NCAA doubles title, and their record together in 2024-25 is 31-3. Genis Salas and Xu are 28-8, and Navarro and Ziodato are 14-8.

The doubles pairings have changed occasionally, for various reasons, but “our No. 1 and No. 2 teams have played together the entire season,” O’Leary said. “Not only are they organized, but they know each other so well and they know what the other one needs if the other one is struggling. They know how to bring them up, they know how to calm them down, and they just trust each other out there.”

Doubles is “a different game,” O’Leary said. “There’s just so much strategy, and it is very different than singles. You could be a great doubles player and struggle a little bit in singles, and vice versa.”

Ziodato, a graduate student, plays No. 1 singles for the Hoos. Navarro, a junior, was not in the singles lineup this weekend, but they complement each other well in doubles.

“I’m pretty good at the net, I’d say, and Zio is a big hitter,” Navarro said.

Navarro, whose sister, Emma, won an NCAA singles title as a Cavalier, was in full voice during the singles matches, supporting her teammates on every court. To know she played a key role in UVA’s victory “feels great,” Navarro said. “I always hope to contribute that, because I know I want the girls to go out there in singles really confident and knowing that we got the doubles point done.”

The Cavaliers played their first-round match outdoors at the Virginia Tennis Facility. The UVA-Illinois match started outdoors Saturday afternoon but, with the singles matches barely under way, moved indoors when thunderstorms arrived at the Boar’s Head.

“It’s never easy to go from outdoors, where it’s very windy, and then coming inside,” O’Leary said, “but I talked to this team about being flexible. Different things are going to come our way, and it’s all about at this time of the year how you handle it, how you handle the adversity, how you’re controlling your thoughts, and I thought we did a very good job coming inside. It was all business, very professional, and got off to really good starts and got a lot of those first sets right when we got in here.”

Virginia went up 2-0 when freshman Karolina Kozakova won 6-0, 6-3 at No. 5. A minute later, another freshman, Genis Salas, finished off her opponent at No. 4 to push the Cavaliers’ lead to 3-0.

The Illini (15-13) made it 3-1 with a win at No. 2, but sophomore Blanca Pico Navarro (no relation to Meggie) followed with a victory at No. 6 to send the Hoos to the third round.

For Kozakova, who was injured for most of the regular season, it was only her second singles match since early February.

“Credit to her,” O’Leary said. “She’s really worked hard on some different aspects of her game and she’s gotten healthy, and so I’m excited for her to just keep building off of this.”

At No. 2 singles, Chervinsky took a medical timeout midway through the first set of her match with Megan Heuser. Chervinsky, a senior, played the rest of the match with her right knee wrapped.

“I think she’s going to be fine,” O’Leary said. “She’s tough, so I’m not worried. We’re just taking it day by day, but I think she’ll be good to go. She’s a senior, she’s tough.”

In early February, UVA defeated Tennessee 4-2 at the ITA Indoors in Evanston, Ill. They’ll meet again Friday at 4 p.m. at the Virginia Tennis Facility, with the winner advancing to the NCAA quarterfinals in Waco, Texas.

No. 10 seed Tennessee (19-7) blanked visiting Pepperdine 4-0 in their second-round match Saturday.

Weather permitting, Friday’s dual match will be played outdoors, and what happened indoors three months ago isn’t likely to have much bearing on the rematch, O’Leary said.

“We’ve just been talking for weeks now about how it’s all about just staying in the present,” she said. “Whatever’s happened in the past, we’re not thinking about that. We’re not thinking about the future. It’s just about the present. So whether we played Tennessee or didn’t play Tennessee, we’re going to be ready for them. We know it’s going to be a different match, and we’re just going to take them on like we take on every team.”

The Cavaliers’ reward for a stellar regular season (and conference tournament) was a top-8 seed in the NCAAs, which meant they could play as many as three matches in Charlottesville.

“The fans can make a huge difference,” said O’Leary, who hopes to see a large turnout for her team’s third-round match.

For several of her players, including Ziodato, it will be their final home match as Cavaliers.

“This place has been my second home for four years, but I’m very excited for this tournament and I’m looking forward to playing as many matches as I can in this tournament,” said Ziodato, who transferred to UVA after playing her freshman season at Baylor.

“Of course it’s going to have a lot of meaning playing on our home courts, but we gotta take it as any other match.”

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