CARY, N.C. – Virginia Tech (10-11, 3-9) was unable to complete the comeback, falling in the second round of the ACC Championships, 1-4, to Florida State (18-7, 7-5).
In an uphill battle that seemed to favor Florida State, Tech secured the doubles point to take an early lead. No. 67 Ryan Fishback and Maxime St. Hilaire would defeat No. 27 Antoine Cornut-Chauvinc and Joshua Dous-Karpenschif, 6-4 to give Tech the edge early on. Matt Harper and Alberto Orso would suffer a loss to No. 79 Loris Pourroy and Youcef Rihane, with Orso battling through an injury sustained earlier in the set. Hugo Maia and Manuel Goncalves would secure the doubles point for the Hokies with an emphatic 6-4 victory in the third doubles match.
Singles play saw the Hokies lineup be placed on different courts due to the ACC Championships format. The first match to finish was on court four, where No. 94 Ryan Fishback fell to No. 5 Antoine Cornut-Chauvinc in two sets. This loss would soon be followed, by two successive losses on courts five and six, as Michael Shepheard and Alberto Orso each fell in two sets.
From that point, the three remaining Hokies began what appeared to be a comeback, as Maxime St. Hilaire and Hugo Maia would each take their second sets after dropping their first. Alex Ix battled in two long sets, splitting them by scores of 7-5, 6-7, before becoming the third of the trio to play in a deciding third set.
Despite strong resilience on all fronts, the match would be clinched on court three with St. Hilaire falling to Loris Pourroy, 3-6, in the final set.
The other two matches would be unfinished, with Hugo Maia in a 3-5 deficit at the time of the match being called, and Alex Ix with a 1-0 lead in his third set.
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