Tennis: UVA’s Adams and Collard, Rodesch advance to NCAA quarterfinals

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Posted on Wednesday, May. 24, 2023, 11:30 pm

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Courtesy UVA Media Relations

Photos: UVA Athletics

The Virginia women’s doubles team of Julia Adams and Mélodie Collard, along with men’s singles competitor Chris Rodesch, picked up wins in the Round of 16 Wednesday at the NCAA Individual Championships in Orlando.

Rodesch, a 9-16 seed in the singles championship, faced No. 32 Axel Nefve of Florida on the outdoor courts Wednesday. Nefve, a graduate transfer who played four years at Notre Dame before transferring to Florida, took the first set 6-4, but Rodesch responded with 6-4, 6-4 wins of his own in the final two sets to advance to the quarterfinals, where he will face No. 41 Alex Bernard of Ohio State on Thursday (Bracket).

Rodesch opened with a win over No. 39 Peter Makk of USC in Monday’s opening round, winning 7-6 (4), 6-2. On Tuesday, Rodesch’s match against No. 59 Joshua Lapadat of Kentucky was the final men’s singles match to go on indoors, starting 2:30 late. The two battled through a very tight match. Rodesch broke Lapadat on his last serve in the first set, winning 7-5, with Lapadat doing the same in the second to take it 6-4. Rodesch won a tiebreaker, 7-2, to decide the third set and advance to the Round of 16.

Rodesch is the lone Cavalier men’s player remaining, as fellow UVA juniors Iñaki Montes and Jeffrey von der Schulenburg, who both earned at-large bids into the singles championship, have been eliminated.

Additionally, Montes and graduate student Ryan Goetz began their weather-delayed doubles opener against No. 23 Arthur Fery and Nishesh Basavareddy of Stanford on the outdoor courts Wednesday, taking the first set 6-3 before weather again delayed the match. After moving indoors, Fery and Basavareddy took the second set 6-0 and then the super tiebreaker 10-5 to take the match and eliminate Goetz and Montes from the tournament.

Montes and Goetz end the season as All-Americans, earning the honor by virtue of their 5-8 seeding in the tournament. They earned the Atlantic Coast Conference’s automatic qualification into the doubles championship as the top-ranked team in the conference.

Adams and Collard started their match against 5-8 seed Nell Miller and Amelia Rajecki of NC State on the outdoor courts but moved indoors when it was tied 3-3 in the first set. Both sides held serve to a 6-6 tie, forcing a tiebreaker with Collard and Adams winning it 7-4. The second set also ended in a 6-6 tie, forcing a second tiebreaker. Collard and Adams prevailed 9-7 in the breaker to advance to the quarterfinals.

They will face Katherine Duong and Megan Heuser of Illinois on Thursday in the quarterfinals (Bracket).

Adams also earned an at-large invitation to compete in singles, but fell 6-2, 6-3 against No. 50 Layne Sleeth of Oklahoma in Monday’s opening round. Another Cavalier, Natasha Subhash, advanced to the second round of singles before coming up short against No. 14 Fangran Tian of UCLA (a 9-16 seed in the championship), ending her run in the Round of 32, 6-4, 6-0.