The No. 1 Virginia men’s tennis team hosted No. 5 South Carolina at the Boar’s Head Resort in Charlottesville Sunday afternoon — its second match against a top-five opponent. Unfortunately, the Cavaliers (3-1, 0-0 ACC) suffered a 4-3 loss to the talented Gamecocks (1-0, 0-0 SEC).
With the teams playing on the indoor courts, doubles play started on time with all the players warmed up and ready for an elite clash. The matchup started off strong for Virginia — the Cavaliers won the doubles point with a 6-1 victory on both courts one and two, taking a 1-0 lead into singles play.
Senior Jeffrey von der Schulenberg secured the first singles point for Virginia on court three against freshman Jelani Sarr — flying through his sets to win 6-2, 6-3. This was the only court to be decided in straight sets — the rest of the singles matchups would have to require a third deciding set.
South Carolina got on the scoreboard after a win on court two to make the score 2-1, but sophomore Måns Dahlberg quickly gave Virginia its third point — thanks to a 6-1, 4-6 and 6-2 victory on court six.
On the top court, senior Chris Rodesch started strong by winning the first set 7-5, but his opponent senior Toby Samuel recovered and pulled ahead to win the second and third set 6-3, 6-4 to give the Gamecocks their second point. Samuel is currently unranked, but spent the entirety of his 2023 regular season in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Singles Top 11, being ranked as highly as No. 3.
Graduate student Edoardo Graziani fought hard on court four, winning the second set 6-2 after losing the first set 6-4 to sophomore Lucas Andrade da Silva. However, Graziani couldn’t take the deciding set and lost 6-3 — giving South Carolina its third point and tying the match 3-3.
Court five held the last singles play matchup, between Virginia senior Alexander Kiefer and South Carolina freshman Sean Daryabeigi. Once again, Kiefer’s match was the deciding match for the Cavaliers — similar to their recent matchup against No. 3 Texas. The overall match was tied up, with Daryabeigi winning the first set 6-3 and Rodesch winning the second set 6-4. The third set was knotted at 3-3, making even the decider match a close game.
Kiefer lost a deuce point but then picked up a break to tie the game 5-5. However, Daryabeigi won a deuce point to take 6-5 lead over Kiefer, then won another deuce point on match point to clinch the victory for South Carolina, making the final score 4-3.
Although they suffered a loss, Coach Andres Pedroso was still proud of how the Cavaliers fought.
“A sincere congrats to the South Carolina Gamecocks. They deserved that win in every sense of the word,” Pedroso said. “It was an amazing college tennis match to be a part of, and I’m really proud of our guys for how they stayed together and fought together until the end. I’m most impressed with Alex Kiefer and what he has accomplished as a competitor in the last two matches. I’ll put my money on Alex any day, any time in a deciding match. Congrats again to South Carolina, and now it’s back to work for the Wahoos.”
Virginia’s next matchup will be in the ITA Kickoff Weekend Tournament, which the Cavaliers are hosting in Charlottesville, Saturday and Sunday. The other teams competing in the tournament will be Florida Atlantic (3-0-2, 0-0 AAC), Penn (1-1, 0-0 Ivy) and Northern Arizona (3-1, 0-0 Big Sky). Only one team will get to advance to the ITA National Team Indoor Championships. Virginia opens play Saturday at noon against Northern Arizona, with Sunday’s Championship match starting at 1 p.m.