By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — The University of Virginia men’s tennis team will play in the NCAA tournament’s Sweet Sixteen at the Boar’s Head Resort on Saturday afternoon. At the same time, the UVA women’s team will play in the same round of its NCAA tournament, some 560 miles away in Ann Arbor, Mich.
A year ago, both teams advanced to the NCAA quarterfinals, and the Virginia men went on to capture the title for the fifth time. The Cavaliers’ director of tennis, Andres Pedroso, is also head coach of the men’s team, so he won’t be in Michigan on Saturday. But he’ll be pulling for his counterpart, Sara O’Leary, and her team.
“Sara and I have always believed that when one program is doing well, it’s really good for the other program,” Pedroso said. “I really think that if both teams are working together, things that are happening on one team translate toward the other team, and it’s only positive and beneficial for everyone.”
This marks the third straight season that both UVA teams have reached the third round of their respective NCAA tournaments. The two programs are close, and it’s “been a total team effort,” Pedroso said. “I was dead on when it came to Sara’s character when we decided to hire her as the head women’s tennis coach. She’s just been an incredible partner in this project, and I’m really proud of what she’s done with her team.”
Pedroso said he loves the way the UVA women’s team “fights. That’s just been kind of a staple characteristic of her team: their toughness, their competitiveness. Every single match they play, they either win or they give themselves a chance to win. They never go down easy. When you play Virginia women’s tennis, it’s always a war, and we take pride in that on the men’s side, too.”
At 1 p.m. Saturday, the 12th-seeded UVA women (20-6) take on No. 5 seed Michigan (24-3) in Ann Arbor. This will be the teams’ second meeting this season. In February, in the ITA National Team Indoor Championship’s round of 16, the Wolverines defeated the Wahoos 4-2 in Seattle.
“It was definitely a very competitive match,” O’Leary said this week.
The Cavaliers weren’t at full strength that day. Julia Adams, who usually plays No. 1 singles, was ill. She gutted out her doubles match with partner Melodie Collard but wasn’t able to play singles. That meant the other players in UVA’s singles lineup each moved up…