CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Virginia men’s tennis claimed its seventh NCAA national championship in Athens, Georgia, over the weekend, capping their run to the final with a dramatic 4-3 win over Texas.
“I’m really proud of my team,” UVA coach Andres Pedroso said in the press release. “These guys have come a long way this year. We’ve had a lot of conversations. I’ve given a lot of speeches. We’ve had a lot of meals together. What you saw out there today is an accumulation of all those moments and all of those conversations and all of those interactions that we had with one another.”
The Cavaliers played in the finals for the ninth time in the last fifteen years, facing long odds against No. 2-seed Texas. The Hoos had already beaten the Longhorn once in the regular season, taking them down on Jan. 18 by a score of 4-1.
That scoreline seemed to be of mind for Texas, after the Longhorns took the doubles point and jumped out to a 3-2 lead with only two courts still playing. But a resilient performance from Jangjun Kim, which featured a cinematic second-set tiebreaker, gave the Hoos a 7-6 victory to tie up the match.
That was Dylan Dietrich’s cue.
Facing Sebastian Gorzny, his opponent from the January regular season contest between the two teams and the current no.3 singles player in the nation, Dietrich had fallen behind in a nail-biting 7-6 defeat during the first set. Dietrich stormed back to take the second set 6-3 and completed the title-winning campaign with a 6-3 win in set three. Afterward, Dietrich was named tournament MVP.
“There were lots of ups and downs in today’s match,” Dietrich said in the release. “I think today it was more important than ever to stay focused on what you can influence. Your opponent will play some great tennis. Just hang in there and believe that the work you’ve done over the past year will pay off in the end, and it did.”
The Cavalier’s run to the finals began at Boar’s Head to with wins against Rider, Columbia and finally, South Carolina, advanced Virginia to tournament finals.
The 4-seeded Cavaliers began their weekend on Thursday, facing 5-seeded Mississippi State. The Bulldogs found success in singles play just once before the Cavaliers ran roughshod over them, comfortably taking the match 4-1 to advance to the semifinal.
Next up was a chance for revenge against Wake Forest. The Demon Deacons, seeded No. 1, going into Saturday’s contest, had already beaten the Cavaliers twice in the 2025-26 campaign, first on March 22 at home and then again at the final hurdle in the ACC tournament final.
In this third meeting, the Demon Deacons took an early lead after grabbing the doubles point, before Wahoo star Dylan Dietrich, the No. 1 singles player in the nation, set the tone and grabbed a win in three sets to open singles play. Wake Forest took the lead again after two straight singles victories, but Stiles Brockett won a dramatic second set, followed by the deciding third set to tie the duel once again.
The match teetered back and forth, with it coming down to the final game for the talented first-year Spainard Andres Santamarta Roig. He kept his poise in a wild second set to take the game and the match for Virginia 4-3.
With the final win over Texas, the Cavaliers now have the fourth most NCAA team titles in the country, ironically passing the same program that hosted this year’s championship — Georgia.
The national title was the 37th all-time for the UVA athletic department.
