M Tennis Defeats Arkansas in ITA Indoor Qualifier
Saturday, January 31 2009 by Tim
Facing its third top-50 team of the season, the #5 Virginia Men’s Tennis team scored a perfect victory – also their third of the season.
The Cavaliers, who previously blanked #64 William & Mary and #30 Notre Dame along with a 6-1 win over #15 Illinois, defeated #45 Arkansas 7-0 in the first ITA National Indoors Qualifier at the Boar’s Head Sports Club yesterday.
In the doubles point, the No. 1 match was a big one, pitting the #3 pair in the country (Virginia’s Sanam Singh and Houston Barrick) against the #15 pair (Blake Strode and Matt Hogan). Singh and Barrick took the win 8-4. Virginia’s Drew Courtney and Lee Singer lost at No. 3 doubles – the first doubles loss of the season for the Cavaliers. Thankfully for the Hoos, Michael Shabaz and Dominic Inglot scored a perfect 8-0 victory at No. 2 doubles.
Virginia took all six of the singles points. All of their players that competed in singles are ranked in the top 110 in the nation and that showed as the 3-6 spots all won in straight sets against unranked opponents. At No. 2 singles, #24 Sanam Singh took a third-set superbreaker to defeat #39 Matt Hogan 6-2, 3-6, 10-3. At No. 1 singles, #43 Dominic Inglot won in a very long third-set superbreaker 6-7, 7-6, 13-11 against #15 Blake Strode.
Virginia now plays #39 East Tennessee at 6pm tonight (Saturday). ETSU snuck out a 4-3 victory over #34 Wisconsin earlier yesterday. That match will also be at the Boar’s Head Sports Club.
These guys don’t seem to have dropped off much from last year when Somdev and Treat anchored the team. Assuming a win against ETSU tonight, the ITA Indoors will be a nice indication of how good this team really is. I suggest anyone who is free and in town try to make it out to BHSC to see the match tonight.