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The ninth ranked duo of Adamski and Paul came out strong in the first set, winning all but one game en route to winning the first set easily, 1-6. In the second, Delgado and Graber staged a fight to take the match to a third set but came up just short, dropping the set 4-6. This was the second time this season that Delgado and Graber lost to the Wake Forest team, the first coming just two months and one day earlier.
“I don’t think that you can ever really compare matches,” said head coach John Thompson. “But this match was a lot closer than even the score indicated. We didn’t get off to a very good start. I don’t think that we executed as well as we usually do. That being said, it is still a great experience and it will ultimately benefit us in the long run.”
The loss that brought the Hokies season to a close came just one day after Delgado and Graber defeated Auburn’s Robberrt Lathowers and Alex Schweizer 7-6, 6-4 in the opening round. In that match tensions ran high as the first set went into a tiebreaker at 6 games all. In the tiebreaker, Tech stayed strong winning 7-2 and taking the opening set 7-6. The pressure continued into the second set, with both pairs exchanging points, until the Hokies got a crucial string of three unanswered points. This enabled them to put the match away winning the second set 6-4.
Although the Hokies season came to a halt with the loss to Wake Forest, it was a historical season nonetheless. The duo, ranked No. 19 in the country, boasted a final record of 21-6, including an 8-3 mark in ACC play. In addition to being 8-3, Delgado and Graber were ranked as the No. 1 seed in conference competition for the majority of the season.
“After last year we knew that we were struggling with doubles,” Thompson said. “We made a big effort to find someone who could play both singles and doubles matches … and we added Graber. When he came in, he and Nicolas matched up right away.”
Delgado came into Tech as a highly touted freshman from Madrid, Spain, where he was ranked No. 2 in the Under-18 category behind the current No. 2 in the world, Rafael Nadal. During his freshman campaign he secured 20 singles wins with another 15 doubles victories. In the 2006-2007 season, Delgado won an additional 23 singles matches, bringing his overall records to 44-25 in singles play and 40-22 in doubles, respectively.
Like Delgado, Graber came to the Hokies as a big time recruit. From Santiago, Chile, Graber was ranked No. 9 by COSAT, a ranking system in South America, and No. 93 by the International Tennis Federation. As a freshman during the 2006-2007 season, Graber won 13 matches in addition to the 21 doubles victories with Delgado. Together the two have a combined overall record of 57-33 in singles and 40-22 in doubles.
This past season, Delgado and Graber put men’s tennis on the map with their performance. As for how much they could improve over the next few seasons, according to Coach Thompson, the sky is the limit.
“Anytime you can qualify for the NCAA Championships, it is an awesome environment, and an awesome event. With Nicolas being a sophomore and Pedro being a freshman, anytime that you can get a team that is that young involved it does nothing but help. They saw the seniors from Wake Forest do extremely well and I think that it made them realize that they can too. Having said that, I fully expect that they work really hard as individuals and as a team to build on the things that they do really well. I think that they can put themselves into a spot where they can win a national championship.”
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