For the third time since 2019, Ohio State men’s tennis finished second in the NCAA Division I Men’s Tennis Championship.
The No. 3 Buckeyes fell 4-0 to No. 5 Virginia — the reigning national champions — Sunday at the USTA National Campus in Orlando, Florida. Ohio State defeated the Cavaliers 4-1 and 4-0 earlier this season, but came up short on the biggest stage.
Ohio State were runners-up in the 2009 and 2018 championships, falling to USC and Wake Forest.
Sunday’s match began with a 6-3 doubles win from third-year J.J. Tracy and fourth-year Cannon Kingsley. However, Virginia came back with two doubles wins of their own; a 6-2 loss for redshirt seniors Andrew Lutschaunig and James Trotter and a 6-3 loss for fourth-years Robert Cash and Justin Boulais on court one, giving Virginia a 1-0 lead.
A pair of Cavalier third-years helped the team claim its victory. Jeffrey von der Schulenburg defeated Tracy 6-2 and 6-1, taking the first set of singles, while the Cavaliers earned their second singles win courtesy of Chris Rodesch’s 6-4 and 6-2 victories over Boulais.
To claim its back-to-back national championship , Kingsley was beaten 6-4 and 6-2 by Virginia’s third-year Iñaki Montes de la Torre, which raised the Cavaliers 4-0 over the Buckeyes.
Despite being defeated in its final match, this season Ohio State and head coach Ty Tucker held a 34-2 overall record, were undefeated in the Big Ten and were Big Ten Champions.
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