Justin Shane tied the score for Virginia at 1-1 with a win at No. 4 singles.
CLEMSON, S.C. -- Virginia remained unbeaten in ACC play by rallying for a 4-3 victory against No. 17 Clemson on Friday at the Hoke Sloan Tennis Center. The Cavaliers (16-2, 7-0 ACC) won their seventh consecutive match, while the Tigers fell to 17-5 (4-3 ACC).
"It was good to have the team go through a match like this," head coach Brian Boland said. "Clemson played a great match and really pushed us. To face adversity like this and be able to overcome it says a lot about this group."
The Tigers took a 1-0 lead in the match by winning the doubles point, marking the first time since March 5 at UCLA that the Cavaliers dropped the opening point. The Clemson pair of Luke Johnson and Austin Ansari downed Thai-Son Kwiatkowski and Jordan Daigle 8-5 at No. 3 doubles before the other two matches went to a tiebreaker. At No. 2, Alex Domijan and Harrison Richmond rallied from down two breaks at 6-2 for an 8-7(5) victory against Alejandro Augusto and Robert Dudley. With the doubles point on the line, Clemson's Hunter Harrington and Dominique Maden edged Justin Shane and Luca Corinteli 8-7(3) at the No. 1 position.
Virginia responded from dropping the doubles point by winning four of the six first sets in singles. Justin Shane drew the Cavaliers even with a 6-4, 6-1 win versus Ansari at No. 4 singles. J.C. Aragone gave Virginia the lead 2-1 with a 6-4, 6-4 win at No. 6 against Dudley. Kwiatkowski extended the lead to 3-1 with a 6-3, 7-5 victory versus Augusto at No. 3.
The Tigers rallied to tie the match at 3-3 with a pair of wins. Maden posted a three-set win against Ryan Shane at No. 2 singles, 3-6, 6-2, 6-3, and Johnson defeated Daigle 7-6(5), 7-5 at No. 5 singles.
The match came down to No. 1 singles, where Domijan rallied for a three-set win versus Harrington 4-6, 7-5, 6-1. Harrington served for the match at 6-4, 5-4, but Domijan broke him and proceeded to win nine of the final 10 games to clinch the match and the victory for Virginia.
"It was a tough match," Boland said. "Due to some guys being sick, we had a depleted roster. We had to throw some doubles teams together at the last minute and we weren't sure until match time who would be able to play singles. I am proud of this group to be able to pull out a win under some tough conditions against a great Clemson team."
