No. 5 Virginia defeated No. 21 Stanford by a 4-2 score in the second round of the 2021 NCAA Men’s Tennis Championship on Sunday at the Virginia Tennis Facility at the Boar’s Head Resort.
Freshman Chris Rodesch (Angelsberg, Luxembourg) rallied from a 5-1 deficit in his third set to clinch the victory for the Cavaliers.
With the victory, the Cavaliers (23-2) advance to the Round of 16 where they will face 12-seed USC on Monday, March 17 at 4 p.m. at the USTA National Campus in Orlando, Fla.
Grad student Carl Söderlund (Stockholm, Sweden) and junior William Woodall (Washington, D.C.) opened the match with a 6-3 doubles win on court one. Stanford picked up 6-4 victories on courts two and three to take the point and lead the match 1-0.
Junior Ryan Goetz (Greenlawn, N.Y.) got the Cavaliers on the board with a 6-1, 6-3 victory against Timothy Sah on court five. Freshman Iñaki Montes (Pamplona, Spain) won 6-4, 6-4 against Alex Rotsaert on court four to put UVA ahead 2-1. Senior Gianni Ross (Chicago, Ill.) went to a tiebreaker to decide his first set against Neel Rajesh, battling for a 9-7 advantage. He won the second 6-2 to give UVA the 3-1 lead.
On court one, Söderlund edged Axel Geller 6-4 in the first set and had a chance to clinch the match when the second set went to a tiebreaker, but Geller battled to stay alive, winning the breaker 7-4 to force a third set.
On court two, freshman Jeffrey von der Schulenburg (Zurich, Switzerland) won his first set 6-2 against Arthur Fery, but Fery won the second to force a decider. The third set looked destined for a tiebreaker when Fery broke von der Schulenburg’s serve and won 7-5, making the match 3-2.
On court three, Rodesch had swiftly dropped his first set against Tristan, Boyer, 6-2, but won the second 6-4 to force a third set. Boyer went up 5-1 in the third set before Rodesch began his comeback. Boyer was serving at 5-3 with a 40-15 advantage when Rodesch staved off the three break points, winning at deuce to get the match back on serve. He held serve to tie it 5-5. Both players held serve to send it to the 6-6 deadlock and tiebreaker. Rodesch held an early 4-1 lead in the tiebreaker, but Boyer pulled to within one to make it 6-5. Rodesch held on for the 7-5 win to clinch his match and the team’s victory.
Söderlund was up a break with a 3-0 lead on court one when the match was suspended.
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Chris Graham
