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Somdev Devvarman and the Cavaliers face Duke and UNC this weekend.
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The Virginia men's tennis team looks to wrap up the regular season ACC Championship this weekend with a pair of matches against the league's best. Duke and North Carolina are immediately behind the Cavaliers in the standings, but one win clinches a share of the title for the Hoos, while two gives them the crown outright. Virginia has at least shared the championship for three straight seasons.
UVa is also playing for history. One win this weekend would give the program its 10th league victory of the season, the first time any team has won double digit games in the conference.
The No. 2 Cavaliers are ready for the challenge and they expect a big crowd for both Friday's match against No. 16 Duke (3 p.m.) and Sunday's showdown with No. 5 North Carolina (1 p.m.)
"We're on top of the ACC now, we just have to continue it this weekend and pull out these two matches to win the ACC outright," Virginia's Treat Huey said. "I feel like we're definitely the favorite to win this weekend and if we play our best, we'll come out on top. We just have to come out and play our game."
Cavalier coach Brian Boland knows that you have to take it one step at a time, meaning the Blue Devils have his full attention right now. Duke is coming off a huge win against UNC on Wednesday. The Devils took home a 5-2 victory thanks to winning the doubles point and the strong play of senior Peter Rodrigues, who won his 100th career singles match.
Rodrigues will lock horns with UVa's Dominic Inglot at No. 3 today in what should be an interesting battle. Boland said the ACC's depth means every match is exciting from top to bottom, though.
"I think it's a great ACC match-up. We play in one of, if not the best conference in the country in the ACC. There's so much depth this year," Boland said. "It's great to play two of the best ACC teams in the last two matches of the season at home in front of our crowd. We're looking forward to it. It should be fun."
Virginia is expecting a large turnout and hoping for more than 1,000 fans at each match. The band will be on hand as well to help juice up the atmosphere. Boland said fans like those on TheSabre.com can really provide a boost to the home team so he hopes lots of Hoos are ready to root on the players.
"We'll have the band out and some other festivities. It is going to be a packed house," Boland said. "It's going to be a great atmosphere, one of the best atmospheres we've seen in a long time."
The Cavaliers should be able to handle the atmosphere. The team plays one of the nation's toughest schedules and UVa just played in a challenging thriller at Florida State on Sunday. In that match, Virginia trailed 3-0 before rallying for the 4-3 win.
Inglot helped spark the comeback when he dug out of a 4-2 third set hole by taking the final four games of the match. That pushed the match score to 3-2. Huey and Marko Miklo followed with some fireworks of their own - Huey battled back from a break down in the third set to win, while Miklo trailed by one set and was tied at 4-4 in the second before taking the final match of the day with a 6-0 third set.
Huey said winning in come-from-behind fashion boosted the team's confidence because the Cavs know they can overcome adversity even when things are going perfectly on the courts.
"Last week, we had a great match at Florida State. We were down 3-0 and we probably should have lost the match. I was down a break in the third set, Dom was down a break, and Marko was down a set," Huey said. "All three of us fought back and had great comeback wins and the team won 4-3. The team is real confident. Going through adversity like that, we feel like we can do anything right now and beat any team even if half our team has a terrible day."