Cavalier Underclassmen Unfazed in Big Moments

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

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — In the second round of the NCAA men’s tennis tournament, Virginia’s doubles lineup consisted of freshmen Keegan Rice, Roy Horovitz and Rafael Jódar, sophomore Dylan Dietrich, junior Mans Dahlberg and graduate student James Hopper.

In singles, another freshman, Jangjun Kim, took the court for UVA, along with Jódar, Dietrich, Rice, Dahlberg and Hopper.

That’s a lot of underclassmen. Don’t be fooled, though, by the Cavaliers’ collective lack of college experience. No. 7 seed Virginia, which defeated Bucknell 4-0 in the first round Saturday, ousted Princeton by the same score Sunday to the advance to the round of 16 for the 19th time in the past 20 NCAA tournaments. Yet another UVA first-year, Stiles Brockett, won at No. 6 singles against Bucknell.

“Listen, all these guys have played in junior [grand] slams, all these guys have played in big events,” head coach Andres Pedroso said Sunday at the Virginia Tennis Facility at the Boar’s Head Resort.

Pedroso said that when he and his assistant coaches, Brian Rasmussen and Treat Huey, “go out there and recruit we look for guys that have played in big moments, and we look for guys that have played big matches, so that when they’re in matches in the NCAAs or ACCs, they’re comfortable, and these first-years, they really are, and they’ve proven it all year.”

This isn’t the first time a talented freshman class has played a leading role for the Cavaliers, who have won two NCAA titles under Pedroso. UVA’s standouts in 2020-21, for example, included first-years Chris Rodesch, Jeffrey von der Schulenburg and Iñaki Montes de la Torre.

“I feel like each year, they get more and more ready for the NCAA tournament,” Pedroso said, “and the coaches also understand how to better prepare them and how to talk to them and how to get them ready. This tournament is about checking every box and it’s about being as prepared as possible and competing until the very end. With these younger classes, it’s a little bit of a different experience for them, but I feel like these classes have done a great job.”

Virginia (22-7), which hosts No. 10 seed Arizona (26-4) in a third-round match Saturday at 1 p.m., has defeated two top-ranked teams this year: Texas in the regular season and Wake Forest in the ACC tournament.

“I don’t think too many teams have done that over the past ten years,” Pedroso said, “and so it shows that [the underclassmen] show up for big matches and they know how to handle them.”

The old man of the group is Hopper, 23, who’s finishing work on his master’s degree in data science. This is his sixth year in college. Hopper spent the first four at Case Western Reserve, a Division III school in Cleveland, before joining the UVA program in 2023-24.

“He’s always searching for one more year of eligibility,” said Rice, 18, Hopper’s partner in doubles.

Hopper, who grew up near Princeton, N.J., wasn’t a heralded junior when he arrived at Case Western, and he was unaccustomed to playing in high-profile tournaments. His younger teammates arrived on Grounds with considerably more experience.

“So for me, it was definitely something that I had to learn over the course of numerous NCAA championships,” Hopper said. “Now in my sixth year here, I feel like I’ve definitely had quite a lot of experience with that. But having these guys who have played in all the junior slams in front of massive crowds, it’s not like they haven’t seen big moments before. It’s just adjusting it to a team format, which I think honestly makes it easier in the bigger moment, knowing you have a whole group of guys behind you.”

Rice, who’s from Regina, the capital of Saskatchewan, Canada, said he and his classmates have “all played at really high levels at the [junior] grand slams, when you might have that country’s crowd cheering against you, but I do believe that the college tennis scene is a bit different. There’s a little bit of an adjustment, just for the environment and playing with the team. But in terms of tennis, I think lots of us have had great experiences that have prepared us for this.”

The Cavaliers played three matches in the ACC tournament, where they lost to Stanford in the final, and they’ll play at least three in the NCAAs.

Rice said he’s learned in his first postseason at UVA that it’s “live or die each match and every single team is going to throw their best at you. And that’s what you’re expecting, that’s what you want. So if you can get through these rounds, you’re more prepared for the final rounds.”

Against Princeton (22-9), Virginia took the doubles point and then went up 2-0 when Kim won in straight sets at No. 5 singles. At No. 3, Rice won his first set 6-2 but found himself trailing Landon Ardila 5-2 in the second. But Rice rallied to win five straight games.

“That was huge,” Pedroso said. “I literally told him on the sideline, the score doesn’t matter. You just keep playing your game and keep coming, keep competing. And that’s what he did.”

Rice said: “I knew I just had to stick in it one point at a time, make [Ardila] really earn it. I knew he was playing well, and his level was gonna come down eventually, and my level was gonna go up. That’s just how tennis is. So I knew if I could stick in there one point at a time, I’d have my chances, and I did.”

Rice’s triumph made the team score 3-0, and Jódar clinched the victory for the Cavaliers by winning a second-set tiebreaker.

Now comes one final home match for Virginia, which can book a trip to Texas with a win over Arizona. The final three rounds of the NCAA tournament will be held in Waco.

Hopper knows his lengthy college career is nearly over, and he said he’s made sure to “look back at the years and the moments I’ve had and cherish every moment. It comes to an end for everybody, but I’m just making sure I’m doing everything I possibly can to milk out the college tennis experience, leaving everything on the table, so that when the end of May comes by, no matter the result, I’ll have the peace of mind that I put everything on the table, left with no regrets, and left this place in a really good spot for the years to come. It’ll be really special to finish out this year and then also see what these guys will do over the next few years.”

Playing at home “definitely has its pros,” Hopper said, “but I think it also has its cons as well. You can sip the poison of being a little too comfortable at home, whereas I feel like sometimes if you’re on the road, you have a bit more of that edge on a little more naturally. But then you also have the crowd and the fans at home, and you don’t have to deal with travel as well. So it goes both ways. But I think it’ll be super nice to play one last match on these courts for me. I’ll leave it all out here and I’m looking forward to it.”

So is Rice. The Hoos benefited from strong fan support Saturday and Sunday, and it’s “really nice to see, knowing that these people have your back,” he said. “It’s on the courts that you train on every single day, so obviously you feel a bit more comfortable.”

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