Hokies hit the road for clash with top-10 Cavaliers

BLACKSBURG – The Virginia Tech men's tennis team travels north for a mid-week clash against No. 8 Virginia on Wednesday at 3 p.m. in Charlottesville. The ACC match between the two in-state rivals will decide a point in the Smithfield Commonwealth Clash.

Smithfield, the presenting sponsor of the Commonwealth Clash, enters its second year sponsoring the friendly, statewide rivalry between Virginia Tech and Virginia. With 22 individual event points on the line, the school that accumulates 11.5 or more points is crowned the winner and takes home the Commonwealth Clash trophy. For more information, visit vthoki.es/Smithfield.
 

ANOTHER TOUGH TEST
Tech's matchup against the Cavaliers marks the third-straight opponent the Hokies have faced that are ranked within the top-15. Tech gave No. 13 Duke their best shot jumping ahead early with the doubles point after Jordan Chrysostom and Ryan Fishback claimed their second ranked win of the year, defeating No. 49 Heller/Zhang, 6-4. Fishback put together one of his best performances of the season to edge No. 12 Garrett Johns, 6-7(2), 7-6(7), 6-3, marking his fourth ranked with thus far. Tech had trouble replicating the same momentum against the ninth-ranked Heels with Frank Thompson earning the lone win in a one-sided, 6-1, victory for UNC.

CAVALIERS
On the flip side, Virginia had a stellar weekend going 2-0 and outscoring Duke and North Carolina by a combined 11-0 score. The 'Hoos started the weekend with a 4-0 drubbing of North Carolina followed by 7-0 sweep against Duke. In this weeks latest ITA rankings the Wahoos boast four players ranked within the top 75 and three ranked doubles pairings. Chris Rodesch anchors Court 1 for the Cavaliers with an 8-1 record and an overall mark of 8-4 against nationally-ranked opponents. The Angelsberg, Luxembourg native ranks as the No. 18 singles player and No. 10 in doubles alongside Ryan Goetz.