MEN’S TENNIS: Rough road in the Commonwealth

The University of Miami men’s tennis team came up empty on a two-match road trip to Virginia this weekend.

The No. 26 Hurricanes fell to top-ranked Virginia 7-0 Friday in Charlottesville and experienced similar results on Sunday when they lost 6-1 to conference rival Virginia Tech at the Burrows-Burleson Tennis Center in Blacksburg.

The loss to Virginia (20-0, 6-0) marked Miami’s most lopsided defeat in over a year, and Virginia Tech (11-5, 4-3) handed the Hurricanes their fourth consecutive loss. Miami is now 9-6 overall and 2-4 in the ACC.

The Canes’ trip got off to a rough start as they lost every match to the Cavaliers, including all three matches in doubles play. Even junior Daniel Vallverdu, the nation’s fourth ranked singles player, looked hapless as he was dominated by Virginia’s top-ranked Somdev Devvarman 6-0, 6-1.

“They were just too good today,” Miami head coach Mario Rincon said of the Cavaliers. “We need to regroup and simply play better to finish out the regular season strong.”

But the Hurricanes did neither of these things Sunday as they were handled easily by the No. 28 Hokies.

Miami jumped out to an early 1-0 lead behind doubles wins by the 24th-ranked pair of Vallverdu and Carl Sundberg and the 54th-ranked duo of David Rosenfeld and Vivek Subramanian.

However, the Hurricanes’ advantage was short-lived as the Hokies took all six singles matches.

Vallverdu dropped his second straight singles match and third of the season when Albert Larregola, ranked 55th nationally, clinched a 6-3, 7-5 upset over the All-American. Rosenfeld, a junior who transferred to UM from Va. Tech following his freshman year, lost in the No. 2 spot to Nicholas Delgado 2-6, 7-5, 7-5.

Miami has been outscored 23-5 in their last four matches dating back to a 5-2 loss against Florida State March 15.

Miami returns to action at 3 p.m. Friday with a home match against No. 53 North Carolina State. Miami then closes out its home schedule when it welcomes No. 30 Wake Forest to Coral Gables for a noon match Sunday.

Andrew Donovan may be contacted at a.donovan@umiami.edu.