Virginia Tops Baylor 4-2 to Reach NCAA Semifinals
Courtesy: VirginiaSports.com
Release: 05/18/2008

TULSA, Okla. – Top-seeded Virginia advanced to the NCAA Semifinals for the second consecutive year with a 4-2 win over No. 9 Baylor in a quarterfinal match Sunday at the Michael D. Case Tennis Center. The Cavaliers will meet No. 4 Georgia Monday at 5 p.m. CT for a berth Tuesday’s championship match.

“We expected it to be a tremendous match and we got everything we expected,” said head coach Brian Boland. “Baylor played a great match as well. I was pleased with our overall effort and how we battled for the win.”

The Cavaliers (32-0) took the early 1-0 lead by winning the doubles point. Houston Barrick (Brentwood, Tenn.) and Sanam Singh (Chandigarh, India) improved to 4-0 at No. 3 doubles in the tournament with an 8-3 win over Dominik Mueller and Jordan Rux. Somdev Devvarman (Chennai, India) and Treat Huey (Alexandria, Va.) secured the opening point for the Cavaliers with an 8-6 win at No. 1 doubles over David Galic and Denes Lukacs. The win was the duo’s 36th victory of the season, tying the school record set by Devvarman and Huey last season.

“This was one of those matches where I felt like the doubles was important,” said Boland. “I really pleased with how we played at No. 1 and particularly at No. 3. They have been doing a great job for us.”

Virginia extended the lead to 2-0 as Michael Shabaz (Fairfax, Va.) won his eighth consecutive match, topping Attila Bucko 6-2, 6-4 at No. 5 singles. Baylor (25-9) cut the lead in half as Mueller defeated Singh 6-3, 6-4 at the No. 4 position.

Devvarman pushed the Cavalier lead to 3-1 as he dismantled Lars Poerschke, ranked No. 8 nationally, 6-3, 6-2 at the No. 1 position.

“Somdev is playing great tennis,” said Boland. “He has been a team leader for us all year. He continues to go out with enthusiasm and energy and the other guys feed off that. I haven’t seen him play better than this and he has a lot of confidence out there.”

After Lukacs cut the lead to 3-2 with his 6-4, 7-6 (5) win over Huey at No. 2 singles, the match came down to matches at No. 3 and No. 6, both of which went to the third set. At No. 3 singles Dominic Inglot (London, England) rallied from losing the first set against Galic in a tiebreaker to win the second set 6-3. In the final set, both players held serve easily in the first seven games as Inglot took a 4-3 lead. The Cavalier had a pair of break points as Galic served at 3-4 but he was able to hold serve and even the set at 4-4. Inglot again took a 15-40 lead on Galic’s serve at 5-6 to have double-match point. On his first match point, Galic’s second serve hit the net and landed wide to give Inglot and the Cavaliers the win.

“I just tried to stay focused on my match and not what it was going to mean,” said Inglot. “It is tough not to pay attention that you could clinch it. I had full confidence that Teddy (Angelinos) was going to win his match, so that took a lot of pressure off me. I knew that if I focused on every single point and every single game, then I was confident that I would come through for the team.”

Virginia will play Georgia in the semifinals for the second consecutive season. Last year, the top-seeded Bulldogs downed Virginia 4-1 in Athens as they went on to win the NCAA Championship. It will mark the third consecutive season that the teams have met in the NCAA Tournament with the Cavaliers looking for their first ever win against the Bulldogs (0-13 all-time).

 

Virginia continues march to perfection
By Whitey Reid
Published: May 19, 2008

TULSA, Okla. — On Sunday, chants of “UVa!” pierced through the Michael D. Case Tennis Center moments before Virginia’s Dom Inglot prepared to return a second serve from Baylor’s David Galic.

Inglot had battled Galic tooth and nail for over two hours in the blistering Oklahoma sun.

Alas, it was match point.

Just before Galic served, the sweat-drenched Inglot, sporting a new beard, whispered to himself.

“This is it,” the London, England native said.

Inglot was right.

Galic’s serve clipped the top of the net. When the ball failed to trickle over, Inglot was mobbed on the court by his teammates. Galic’s double-fault had given him a hard-earned 6-7, 6-3, 7-5 win.

More importantly, it clinched a 4-2 Virginia victory and moved the Cavaliers into the NCAA Tournament semifinals against Georgia tonight at 5 p.m.

The Bulldogs, who defeated Virginia in last year’s semifinals, are the reigning NCAA champions.

“We have great respect for Georgia,” said Virginia coach Brian Boland. “They’ve been here a number of times. We’re looking forward to it. I know our guys are excited about it.

“We’ve been here before. I think there’s nothing like having that experience. Hopefully it gives the edge we need [today].”

It certainly gave Inglot an advantage on Sunday. Playing at No. 3 singles, the junior did a great job of hanging tough after dropping a first-set tiebreaker.

“I felt as soon as I got the break in the second set that the set would go my way and the momentum would be with me in the third set,” Inglot said. “I felt confident.”

That was good news for Virginia because if Inglot had lost, the Cavs’ entire season would have come down to the No. 6 singles match between UVa’s Teddy Angelinos and Baylor’s Jordan Rux. That match was tied at 2 in the third set when Inglot clinched.

“I just tried to stay focused on my match and not think about what it was going to mean,” Inglot said. “It’s tough not to pay attention that you might clinch, but I had full confidence that Teddy was going to clinch it if I didn’t.”

The match with Baylor was Virginia’s stiffest test in more than a month. UVa (32-0), the only undefeated team in the country, hadn’t dropped two matches since a 5-2 win over N.C. State on Apr. 11, and hadn’t lost a match in its first three NCAA Tournament victories.

“We expected [Baylor] to be a tough match, and certainly we got everything that we expected,” said Boland, whose team had defeated an injury-riddled Bears squad, 7-0, in Charlottesville on March 1. “I was really pleased with our overall effort. The guys fought hard.”

Virginia got off to a good start, winning the doubles point.

Playing at No. 3, Houston Barrick and Sanam Singh came up big. The turning point of their 8-3 victory came when they were serving at 3-2. Rux and Dominik Mueller looked like they were going to break, but Barrick and Singh fended them off. They won the game and went on to take four of the next five games.

Their victory was huge because a few courts over Inglot and Michael Shabaz were losing 7-3.

Luckily, Devvarman and Huey were able to defeat Galic and Denes Lukacs to clinch the point.

In singles, Devvarman — as has been the case all season — was on his game. The senior co-captain was machine-like in disposing of Lars Poerschke, 6-3, 6-2.

“I think I’ve been getting better as the tournament has gone on,” Devvarman said. “It feels good. I think Poerschke played really well. I think he was a hurting a little bit which I took advantage of.”

After freshman Michael Shabaz won in straight sets, the match momentarily took a turn for the worse for Virginia when Treat Huey and Sanam Singh lost at No. 2 and No. 4, respectively.

That’s what made Inglot’s performance so crucial.

“I couldn’t be more proud of Dom,” Boland said. “He’s had a great couple weeks of practice and I think he’s at the top of his game now.

“I feel the same way about the rest of the team…we’re peaking.”

 

Dogs roll over Ole Miss, reach NCAA semi
By CHIP TOWERS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 05/18/08

Tulsa, Okla. — It will be a classic case of role reversal when Georgia and Virginia meet in the semifinals of the NCAA Tennis Championships on Monday.

The defending national champion Bulldogs rolled to a 4-0 win over Ole Miss on Sunday here at the Michael D. Case Tennis Center to advance to the national semifinals for the third straight year. For their reward they will draw the No. 1-ranked, top-seeded and undefeated Cavaliers.

Virginia (32-0) is a mirror image of the Georgia team that steamrolled college tennis last year. The Cavaliers have the No. 1 singles player, No. 1 doubles team and have had their way with opponents all season. That was the book on the Bulldogs as they made their way to a 32-0 record and their fifth national championship last year in Athens. They beat fourth-seeded Virginia - same as Georgia this year of course - 4-1 in the semifinals.

Georgia coach Manuel Diaz how the dynamic is different this time.

"It doesn't matter," he said. "We've come in undefeated and haven't won it. We've won it as underdogs. That doesn't even come into our minds. It's very infrequent for a team to come in undefeated and it doesn't guarantee you anything when you do. It's just a totally different situation every year. . . .

"But I'm really happy with what we got going on right now."

The Bulldogs definitely had it going on Sunday. They quickly snatched the doubles point on Ole Miss, then got straight-set victories from Travis Helgeson and Christian Vitulli at Nos. 1 and 6 singles, respectively. Nate Schnugg clinched the victory with a three-set win at No. 3 singles.

The shutout was Georgia's 12th in is last 16 NCAA tournament matches. The Bulldogs have won the doubles point in 15 of the last 16, including 10 in a row.

Virginia is doing some fairly astounding stuff as well. No. 1-ranked Somdev Devvarman has lost only one singles match all season - to Georgia's Helgeson no less - and carries a 37-1 record into Monday's match. Neither he nor Ted Angelinos at No. 6 singles have lost a dual match all season.

"We're not thinking about how we did last year or how they did," Devvarman said. "We're focused on what we can do to beat Georgia. We're going to be the favorites but obviously we know that Georgia is playing very well. In know our guys are going to be fired up to play them."

It was quickly apparent Georgia was going to advance as it jumped out to a 3-0 lead on Ole Miss. The only question was from where that fourth point would come. And it could have come from a lot of places.

Senior Luis Flores seemed the most likely candidate. He had four match points on Ole Miss's Robbye[cq] Poole at No. 3 singles only to see them slip away and eventually lose the second set in a tiebreaker (7-5). Javier Garrapiz was up 6-4, 5-4 on serve in the second set at No. 5 singles and Jamie Hunt led 4-3 in the third set of his match at 4.

But it was Schnugg who would eventually do the honors. He was up a break and a match point at 5-4 in the second set against No. 31 Matthias Wellerman but let the big German come back and win in a tiebreaker (7-4). But while everyone was watching Flores, Hunt and Garrapiz on the back courts, Schnugg won all but 12 points in third set to clinch at 6-1.

"I'm not really sure what happened," Schnugg said of not taking care of business in the second set. "That's a situation I usually enjoy being in because I usually can hold my serve and close out the match. Today I didn't but I was happy with the way I came out in the third set."

Georgia was dominant in doubles. Most impressive was the 8-4 win at the No. 1 spot by 17th-ranked Hunt and Schugg over Ole Miss's No. 5-ranked team of Jonas Berg and Erline Tveit. The doubles point was clinched at Flores and Garrapiz at No. 2.

 

Don't whine about bids, ACC
David Teel
9:44 PM EDT, May 17, 2008

The annual whine festival known as the ACC spring meetings concluded this week in typical fashion.

Officials ran up lavish expenses at the Ritz-Carlton in Amelia Island, Fla., and complained about the number of conference teams in the NCAA basketball tournament.

On Point 1: Good for them. If the bean counters back home don't blink at $150 plus tip for the Hadashi massage, why should we?

On Point 2: Please shut up.

Really, a conference of the ACC's pedigree shouldn't stoop to self-pity. The tournament selection committee splits hairs each year, and the ACC has caught more than its share of breaks.

Besides, since expanding to 12 teams for the 2005-06 season, the conference has, by its own standards and compared to rival leagues, underperformed in three consecutive NCAA tournaments.

You want to fuss about the selection panel's decisions? Then you need to be better than 19-15 with one Final Four in the past three NCAA tournaments.

That winning percentage (.559) marks the ACC's worst three-year stretch since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985. Moreover, eight of those defeats came against lower-seeded opponents.

The ACC's beef du jour: The Rating Percentage Index computer ranked it the No. 1 league, yet only four of its teams made the field. Meanwhile, the Big 12, Pacific 10 and Southeastern Conference sent six teams each, the Big East eight.

Patently unfair and illogical, ACC types say. But their argument is simple and specious.

First, the RPI does not determine the field. If it did, the selection committee would be obsolete, and the NCAA would merely choose the highest-rated teams available for the 34 at-large bids.

Second, the RPI favored the ACC not for an abundance of great teams but for an absence of terrible ones. No ACC squad was ranked below 140th, but only three were among the top 30.

Conversely, the Big East had seven teams in the top 30 and four below 140th. You tell me which league deserved more NCAA bids.

Third, the selection committee's written principles say conference affiliation shall not be considered when evaluating at-large candidates.

ACC commissioner John Swofford disagrees and is asking the NCAA to weigh conference rankings. Well, if Swofford is so fond of the RPI's conference rankings, then he must also be enamored of its team ratings.

Fine. Let's take a look.

According to collegerpi.com, the highest-ranked ACC squad bypassed was No. 52 Virginia Tech. Care to guess how many teams below the Hokies received at-large bids?

That would be two: Kentucky and Oregon, Nos. 57 and 58, respectively.

But how many teams ahead of the Hokies didn't make the field?

Try six: Dayton, Illinois State, Massachusetts, Creighton, Mississippi and Ohio State.

So even if the field were determined by the all-knowing RPI, the ACC still would have had four teams for the second time in three years.

Compare Virginia Tech's résumé to Dayton's. It's a landslide.

The Hokies were 1-7 against top-50 competition, 6-9 versus the top 100 and played the No. 135 non-conference schedule. The Flyers were 4-4 against the top 50, 9-6 against the top 100 and navigated the No. 26 non-conference schedule.

Again, all numbers courtesy of the infallible RPI.

The irony and hypocrisy here is that the ACC cites the RPI only when convenient. When the conference was second-ranked in 2007 and placed seven teams in the NCAA, two more than the top-ranked SEC, everything was jake.

Virginia that season was a No. 4 seed, the ACC's regular-season co-champ. But the Cavaliers were 55th in the RPI, and while 11 teams ahead of them didn't make the field, only one below them, Stanford, received an at-large bid.

Should the committee have excluded Virginia? Of course not. Omitting the Cavs would have been preposterous.

The ACC's problem isn't the RPI. The ACC's problem, in large measure, is its unbalanced conference schedule.

Like other leagues that expanded for football purposes, the ACC was forced to abandon its traditional double round-robin in which all conference teams play one another twice. Twenty-two league games would leave too little room for outside competition.

For example, last season Virginia Tech, through no fault of its own, played the weakest possible regular-season conference schedule. The Hokies faced North Carolina, Duke, Clemson and Miami once each, robbing them of additional chances to impress the selection panel.

Might the ACC jump from 16 to 18 conference games after its current television deals expire in 2011? That's one positive idea, and certainly more constructive than whining.