The ‘Canes kicked off the weekend in Charlottesville, where they fell 6-1 in a tough draw to No. 5 Virginia. The Cavaliers ran the doubles courts as No. 16 Melodie Collard and Elaine Chervinsky shut out No. 29 Isabella Pfennig and Xinyi Nong, 6-0. Court two was taken by the No. 39 ranked duo of Natasha Subhash and Hibah Shaikh, who succeeded 6-2 over UM’s Antonia Balzert and Leonie Schuknecht. With the Cavaliers clinching the opening point, play was halted for Audrey Boch-Collins and Alexa Noel, who were leading 4-3 against Annabelle Xu and Sara Ziodato.
Virginia’s dominance carried over into singles play, as on court four, Subhash shut out Schuknecht 6-0, 6-0. Collard easily defeated Nong on court six, 6-0, 6-2, to further extend Virginia’s lead. UVA clinched the match with Ziodato’s dominant 6-1, 6-2 win over Balzert.
The Canes picked up their only point of the day with No. 112 Boch-Collins’ 6-1, 6-3 win over No. 99 Chervinsky.
Virginia notched the final two courts as No. 23 Shaikh defeated No. 62 Pfennig, 6-0, 4-6, 1-0 (10-6), and No. 95 Xu claimed the top court over No. 9 Alexa Noel, 6-2, 0-6, 1-0 (10-7).
The Canes traveled to Blacksburg on Sunday for their final regular season match of the day to take on Virginia Tech.
The Hokies kicked off the afternoon with a double’s win as Tech’s Charlotte Cartledge and Ozlem Uslu defeated Noel and Boch-Collins, 6-3, on court three. The Canes bounced back and quickly tied it up with Pfennig and Nong’s 6-3 win over Katie Andreini and Dariya Radulova. Tech was able to claim the double’s point as Semra Aksu and Erika Cheng took down No. 67 Schuknecht and Balzert, 7-5.
The Hurricanes found their rhythm during the singles portion and opened up play, taking three consecutive courts. No. 62 Pfennig dominated Andreini on court two with her 6-0, 6-1 victory. Nong followed with a big 6-1, 6-0 win over Cheng on court five, and at the top court No. 9, Noel succeeded over Uslu 6-0, 6-2 to extend the Hurricanes lead to 3-1.
The Hokies sealed the next court as Laima Frosch defeated UM’s freshman Maria Paula Vargas, 6-2, 6-3. With a chance to clinch the team win, Boch-Collins came through in the clutch and sealed the deal for the Canes with a 6-1, 7-6 (1) win over Tamara Barad Itzhaki.
The final match of the day played out, and Tech’s Aksu ultimately defeated Balzert, 2-6, 7-5, 6-3, to give the Hokies their final point and close out the Canes’ 4-3 win.
The Canes will next head to North Carolina as the sixth seed in the ACC Championship. Miami will receive a bye, automatically sending them to the second round of play, in which they will either face the winner of No. 11 seed Virginia Tech or No. 14 seed Louisville.
Benjamin Gerkin
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