CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – The No. 3 Virginia men’s tennis team (5-1) plays a pair of weekend matches against ranked opponents beginning with a match at No. 1 Ohio State (6-0) on Friday, Feb. 2 at 6 p.m. at the Ty Tucker Tennis Center in Columbus, Ohio. The Cavaliers close out the weekend playing at No. 16 Kentucky (4-1) on Sunday, Feb. 4, at 12 p.m.
MATCH INFORMATION
- Live streaming and live scoring will be available for the matches
NOTING THE CAVALIERS
- Virginia remained at No. 3 in this week’s ITA Rankings
- Friday’s contest is a rematch of last year’s NCAA Championship final. UVA won 4-0 against Ohio State to win their second consecutive NCAA team title
- Sunday’s contest is a rematch of the 2022 NCAA Championship final that UVA won 4-0. The two teams met in the 2023 NCAA Quarterfinals with UVA winning 4-2
- In the first month of the season, UVA will have faced all three opponents they played in the final three rounds of the 2023 NCAA tournament in Orlando. UVA won 4-3 at Texas (its 2023 semifinal opponent) on Jan. 18 of this year
- The Ohio State match is Virginia’s third top-five match-up already this season
- The Cavaliers began the season ranked at No. 1 but slipped to No. 3 after being edged 4-3 by now No. 2 South Carolina. Ohio State, which began the season at No. 2, moved up to the top of the rankings
- Dylan Dietrich was named the ACC Freshman of the Week after going 2-0 in singles during ITA Kickoff Weekend. It is the third-straight ACC weekly honor for a Cavalier after James Hopper and Chris Rodesch have both earned Player of the Week honors and Rodesch and Jeffrey von der Schulenburg were named the ACC Doubles Team of the Week
- Hopper and fellow grad student Edoardo Graziani are 4-1 at No. 1 doubles in dual matches and 7-3 overall
- The Cavaliers’ No. 2 and No. 3 doubles teams are undefeated this spring
- von der Schulenburg leads the team in singles victories with a 13-7 record
ABOUT THE MATCH-UPS
- The Buckeyes have won 54 consecutive home matches. Their last loss was to Virginia on Jan. 21, 2021
- Virginia leads the all-time series 10-8. The teams have split the last eight meetings since 2017
- Last season, the Buckeyes won both regular season meetings, winning 4-1 in Charlottesville and 4-0 in the ITA Indoors. Virginia won 4-0 in the NCAA Championship match in May
- Virginia faced Kentucky in the 2023 NCAA Quarterfinals and in the 2022 NCAA Championship final
- The Wildcats fell to Alabama in last weekend’s ITA Kickoff Final….