By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — The University of Virginia men’s tennis team is 24-4 and will enter the NCAA tournament on a 16-match winning streak after capturing its third consecutive ACC title Sunday in Cary, N.C.
“I like where we are,” said head coach Andres Pedroso, who in 2022 guided the Cavaliers to the program’s fifth NCAA championship.
Pedroso’s mood wasn’t as upbeat in mid-February. After opening the ITA National Team Indoor Championships in Chicago with a 4-3 win over Tennessee, Virginia lost 4-0 to Michigan and then, in its final match, 4-0 to Ohio State.
“It’s two years in a row that we’ve had a little bit of a tough start to the year indoors,” Pedroso said Tuesday. “So when it happened again this year, I as the head coach took a look in the mirror and said, ‘What do I need to adjust with this program? What do I need to adjust with this program in order to maximize and make sure that we learn from these losses, just like we did last year?’ At the end of the day, it starts with the head coach. I took a look in the mirror, and there were some things that I needed to do better as the leader.”
In addition, the coaching staff—Pedroso, associate head coach Scott Brown and volunteer assistant Treat Huey—took “a look at our practices and took a look at our strength and conditioning workouts and how we were talking to the guys and the messages that we were giving them,” Pedroso said. “Something that I’ve learned in this program is that you learn a lot more from the losses than you do from the wins, unfortunately, and we took some good lessons from them.”
🏆 “Every championship is so special!” 🏆#GoHoos pic.twitter.com/NnFnC4EL1l
— Virginia Men’s Tennis (@UVAMensTennis) April 25, 2023
The Wahoos haven’t lost since leaving Chicago. They closed the regular season with 13 straight victories and then won three more matches in the ACC tournament, defeating Miami 4-2, Florida State 4-1 and, in the final, Duke 4-1.
The Hoos might be better outdoors than indoors, but Pedroso didn’t want to use that an excuse. “I can do a better job of coaching guys indoors, and I personally wasn’t doing a good enough job as a coach on the sidelines and in practice,” he said, “and I think it was good for me to kind of come to this realization that I needed to get better. And, as a result, if I get better, I feel like the [other] coaches get better and the…