The Virginia men’s tennis team defeated South Carolina 4-1 on May 8 at the Virginia Tennis Facility, advancing to the quarterfinals of the 2026 NCAA Men’s Tennis Championship.
With this victory, the Cavaliers move on to face either Mississippi State or Georgia in a quarterfinal match scheduled for Thursday, May 14 at Georgia’s Dan Magill Tennis Complex in Athens. The team entered the tournament as the fourth seed and is ranked fifth nationally by ITA.
Virginia started strong in doubles play. Freshman Andres Santamarta Roig and sophomore Jangjun Kim secured a 6-2 win, while sophomores Stiles Brockett and Keegan Rice added a 6-3 victory, giving Virginia an early lead. In singles competition, No. 21 Keegan Rice earned a straight-set win over Paul Barbier Gazeu. Although most Cavaliers dropped their first sets in singles matches, they rallied to force deciding sets across five courts.
Head coach Andres Pedroso said after the match: “I told the team after the doubles points specifically that South Carolina was going to respond and they were going to fight like heck at the beginning of the singles, and that’s exactly what they did. They might have caught a couple of our guys by surprise, but our guys responded after that. We kept our composure. We could have let it get to us, but we didn’t. That’s what this team has done all year. They’ve just dealt with adversity really well and just hung in there and played complete matches.” On Jangjun Kim’s performance he said: “When he has the crowd behind him like that, and he’s riding that momentum, there are not too many guys in college tennis who are better than him. He’s a skilled tennis player, and when he’s got that energy, it’s another level.”
Match notes show Virginia is now 17-11 all-time against South Carolina with three consecutive wins between them; this marks their nineteenth appearance in an NCAA quarterfinal within twenty-one years of championship participation. Individual highlights include Rice leading with a season record of 33-5 (19-2 this spring), Kim improving his record on courts two through four to 14-6, and Brockett raising his mark on court five to seven wins out of eleven matches played.
The Cavaliers look ahead as they prepare for their next challenge at Georgia’s Dan Magill Tennis Complex.
