Cavs earn share of ACC crown

Nothing Dom Inglot tried from the baseline was working very well on Sunday afternoon at the Snyder Tennis Center — or was looking very pretty.
Forehands were all over the place. Topspin backhands were sailing long. Inglot’s serve was spotty.
Things got so bad that the London, England native, in the middle of a game, borrowed the racket of teammate Michael Shabaz, who was playing on the next court.
Inglot’s play seemed to get even worse.
But then a funny thing happened. Inglot decided to completely abandon any semblance of a baseline game and began charging the net at every opportunity.
The new strategy worked like a charm for the Virginia senior.
Inglot, who was down a set and a service break, came back with a vengeance on Senior Day, shocking UNC’s Clay Donato, 5-7, 6-3, 10-7 (super tiebreaker) in the No. 1 singles match.
No. 1 Virginia clinched at least a share of its sixth consecutive ACC regular season title, shutting out No. 39 UNC, 7-0, in front of a crowd of 502.
If the win sounded dominating, well, that was kind of the whole point.
“Coach [Brian Boland] really emphasized that,” said Inglot, known as The Dominator. “He wanted us to show everyone in the country that we’re an intimidating team that can win 7-0 or 6-1.”
Virginia took a 1-0 lead by winning the doubles point. Houston Barrick and Sanam Singh made quick work of Andrew Crone and Alex Rafiee, 8-3, at No. 2.
Drew Courtney and Lee Singer clinched the opening point for the Cavaliers with their 8-5 win at No. 3 over Brennan Boyajian and Zach Hunter.
In singles, Courtney cruised to a 6-2, 6-2 win over Luke Mojica at No. 5. Singer added a 6-4, 6-2 win over Hunter at No. 6 to make the score 3-0.
Michael Shabaz gave the Cavaliers the dual-match win as he completed his 6-2, 6-2 win over Crone at No. 3.
“I was serving well,” Shabaz said, “and usually when I’m serving well, I can get on a few returns and it makes my life a lot easier.
“I felt like the ball was coming off my racket nicely and I could kind of bully him around the court.”
Singh added a 6-4, 6-3 win over Taylor Fogleman at No. 2 singles and Barrick completed the sweep, rallying from 5-2 in the third set for a 7-5, 2-6, 7-6 (2) win over Boyajian at No. 4.
But one of the most encouraging things to come out of the day was Inglot’s ability to adjust his game on the fly — something he will likely have to do as Virginia enters postseason play.
Inglot had his epiphany about midway through the second set.
“I just told coach, ‘Listen, I’m going to come to the net and I’m going to chip and charge. I’m going to bluff it out basically because I’m not going to win from the back. I can’t get the ball in,’” Inglot said.
“I did that and he started panicking…I think he felt like he had to come up with something every time, whereas before he felt like he was letting me make the mistakes. Suddenly, the emphasis was put on him.”
Inglot said it felt great to pick up the victory in the final regular-season match of his career year in front of an enthusiastic home crowd.
“I never thought the end of my career would come,” he said. “It felt surreal. I really wanted to go out with a bang.”
The win was Virginia’s 40th consecutive win over an ACC opponent (regular season and tournament) and 47th consecutive home victory, extending both school records.
The Cavaliers have now won at least a share of the ACC regular season title every season since 2004.
“What an honor to have in one of the best leagues in country,” Boland said. “We are proud of the accomplishment, but also realize that we have a lot of work in front of us. I see us improving an awful lot in the coming weeks.”