On a weekend with drama that rivaled the Final Four and the 2019 National Championship for the men's basketball team, the Virginia men's tennis team pulled off a pair of thrilling comebacks to win its seventh National Championship this weekend. The fourth-seeded Hoos rallied from behind against both Wake Forest and Texas to grab 4-3 victories and the trophy.
UVA has won all seven of its National Championships since 2013, giving it half of the titles in that time frame. The Hoos broke through in 2013 and have added new crowns in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2022, 2023, and 2026. Cavalier coach Andres Pedroso said current players can draw on all that history in key situations as a road map to finish on top.
"I think some of it is the winning tradition that we can draw from and a lot of stories that I can tell about the former players and what they've done to put seven stars on our back. Now, seven stars on our back, it's hard to believe," Pedroso said in a news release. "There's just so many stories, so many former players that I talk to them about all the time. I don't want to say it's brainwashing because I really believe it when I tell them, I make sure they believe that when they walk on the Grounds at the University of Virginia for the first time, that we play our best tennis in May and we are the closest team. We take pride in that. We're a really tough out. I give the former players all the credit for that, for that winning tradition and all the stories that I can draw from for these guys to pump them up."
Most runs to a championship contain some nerve-testing moments and UVA's previous titles had there fair share, but the 2026 path may take the cake. Early in bracket action, Columbia won the doubles point, jumped ahead 2-0 in singles, and took the first set in three other matches before Virginia came back to win. Against South Carolina, the Cavaliers led 1-0 after doubles but then dropped five of six first sets in singles to amp up the pressure. They steadied the ship to win 4-1.
Things climbed to another level at the Final Four. On Saturday against Wake Forest, the No. 1 seed that already had downed Virginia twice this season, won doubles and then duplicated the South Carolina start by taking five of six first sets in singles. The turnaround took longer for the Hoos this time, though. The Demon Deacons surged ahead 3-1 and the match hung in the balance with a couple of second set tiebreaks. At No. 5, Stiles Brockett captured the tiebreaker 7-2 and then won the decisive third set 6-3. Combined with the wins at No. 1 by Dylan Dietrich and Jangjun Kim at No. 3, that evened the team score at 3-3.
The final match came down to No. 4 where Andres Santamarta Roig won a second set tiebreaker 7-2, forcing the outcome into the third set. Wake's Aryan Shah broke early for a 2-0 lead. Roig, however, took six of the final eight games to prevail 6-4 and send UVA to the title match with a 4-3 win.
On Sunday against Texas, the Wahoos needed more resilience to rally. They fell in doubles for the third time in the tournament so the Longhorns led 1-0 headed to singles matches. A back-and-forth battle unfolded next with UVA and Texas alternating wins. The match score stood at 1-1, 2-2, and 3-3 with the final stalemate coming after Kim clinched a point through an 11-9 second set tiebreaker.
So once again the Hoos' fate would come down to one court. This time Dietrich sat in the hot seat.
The Virginia junior lost a first set tiebreak to Sebastian Gorzny and needed to win the final two sets for UVA to be the champ. After taking the second set 6-4, however, Dietrich fell behind 3-1 when Gorzny notched an early break. Just when things looked dire, Dietrich rattled off four straight games to flip the momentum. Gorzny survived a match point on deuce on his own serve to make it 5-4, but Dietrich closed the door and gave his team the trophy in the next game thanks to a 6-4 win in the third.
"There was lots of ups and downs in today's match," Dietrich said in a news release. "I think today it was more important than ever to stay focused on what you can influence. Your opponent will play some great tennis. Just hang in there and believe that the work you've done over the past year will pay off in the end, and it did."
Dietrich was named the NCAA Tournament MVP. He finished 5-0 for the Hoos on the way to the title. Rice and Kim made the All-Tournament team for singles as well. The Cavaliers now have the fourth-most team titles in the NCAA.
"I'm really proud of my team. These guys have come a long way this year," Pedroso said in a news release. "We've had a lot of conversations. I've given a lot of speeches. We've had a lot of meals together. What you saw out there today is an accumulation of all those moments and all of those conversations and all of those interactions that we had with one another. That's our culture out there, just a never say die attitude. We try to do it in a classy way and I think that's what these guys did."
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