Virginia men’s tennis wins the ACC Championship

The Virginia Cavaliers men’s tennis team continued an incredibly successful weekend of UVA sports by winning the ACC Championship early Sunday afternoon. Virginia beat beat the North Carolina Tar Heels in the final, 4-3 and senior Ryan Goetz was named tournament MVP.

Things didn’t start great for UVA as the ‘Hoos dropped the doubles point to the Heels, losing the first and third matches of the three. Fortunately, though, Virginia dominated in the singles matches.

Specifically, Goetz and Jeffrey Von Der Schulenburg each lost their first set (6-2 and 6-3) before dominating the next two sets as Goetz clinched his single’s match with two 6-1 victories and Von Der Schulenburg won 6-0 and 6-2. Meanwhile, Gianni Ross won the sixth match in two sets, winning the first 6-3 and stamping his authority on the second one, 6-1.

North Carolina’s Brian Cernoch and Anuj Watane kept things interesting by winning each of their single’s matches in three sets to tie the overall score at 3-3.

But, UVA’s fourth point and the one that clinched the title came from star Inaki Montes who won a thrilling 7-3 tiebreaker against UNC’s Benjamin Sigouin in the third set. In fact, this was reminiscent of just a year ago when Montes won UVA the ACC Championship with his singles win against UNC.

After such a back-and-forth contest, Head Coach Andres Pedroso hailed his team’s ability to fight back, emphasizing how “our guys just showed how tough they are, how resilient they are and all the work that they put in.”

This is the men’s team 14th ACC Championship and came after the ‘Hoos went undefeated in conference play. They’ve now won 17 straight matches and are ranked sixth nationally heading into the NCAA Tournament.

Pedroso added that “we’re looking forward to the next two, three weeks,” in the NCAA Tournament as “we think we have a chance against anyone.”