Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Fault!

The top tennis team in the land went down in defeat yesterday as the number one Virginia Cavaliers lost to the 9th ranked Pepperdine squad 4-3. The match opened up what will be a challenging schedule for the two-time ACC champions. The game came down to the opening doubles match up. Virginia would lose it, ultimately determining a winner after a 3-3 split in the singles matches. Doubles started off on the wrong foot as the 19th ranked UVA duo of Rylan Rizza and Darrin Cohen fell to Scott Doerner and Andre Begemann. The 31st ranked Pepperdine double of Pedro Rico and Ivor Lovrak coasted past Treat Huey and Eric Riley, clenching the doubles point for Pepperdine.

Pepperdine would win matches 1-3, UVA secured matches 4-6 but that would not be enough for victory. However, some of Virginia's highly ranked players showed why they are the real deal. 4th ranked Huey took down Andre Begemann 6-2, 6-3. Marko Miklo and Darrin Cohen also picked up big wins. The trip was not so nice for 10th ranked Somedev Devvarman who lost his singles match to 100th ranked Pedro Rico, 3-6, 4-6.

Despite the tough loss, head coach Brian Boland remains confident.

"Pepperdine is a good team; they played a great match today and deserved to win," said Boland. "This was a good learning experience for our team and we will rebound from this."

Turns out the coach was right, as the next day Virginia took on 20th ranked USC and registered a 5-2 victory. Unfortunately the game was the second time in a row UVA dropped the doubles point. This time however, the singles players came to play. Doug Stewart was the only Cavalier to lose in singles, after a three set epic to Kaes Van't Hof of the Trojans.

The victory may not keep Virginia at number one, but it should give them confidence that they can once again return to the top of the heap.

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