Entering the day following a picture perfect 4-0 sweep over rivals Virginia Tech, No. 4 Virginia faced off against a tough California team in the quarterfinals of the ACC Championship. Despite their middling record, the Golden Bears (16-13, 6-8) were coming off a 5-0 win over No. 34 SMU and looked confident in their ability to pull off an upset over one of college tennis’ best. They nearly did, pushing the Cavaliers (21-3, 13-1) to the brink of elimination before some otherworldly individual self-belief brought Virginia all the way back to win 4-3.
The doubles matches proved challenging to the Cavaliers. As each pairing was engaged in a tight contest, California barely escaped with the point.
On Court 1, the No. 45-ranked pairing of senior Måns Dahlberg and sophomore Jangjun Kim took on No 33 juniors Alex Aney and Timofey Stepanov. After holds throughout the first six games, with Virginia coming back from down 0-40 to make it 3-3, the Golden Bears duo proceeded to win the next three games, breaking Dahlberg and Kim to go up 5-3 before ultimately winning 6-3…