Virginia men’s tennis does not play a team match until January. However, that has not stopped its players from starting to rack up the wins.
On Sunday, two Cavaliers won professional titles on the same day, about 1,100 miles apart. In Sioux Falls, S.D., fourth-year Dylan Dietrich won his second ATP Challenger title in four weeks and beat a top-100 player for the first time along the way. In Las Vegas, second-year Andres Santamarta Roig won an ITF M25 title after beating the tournament’s top seed in his first match.
Six months after winning the program’s seventh national championship, Virginia’s best players are already beating professionals.
Dietrich: from No. 556 to the top 200
When Dietrich clinched last May’s national title at No. 1 singles, he was an elite college player with a modest pro ranking. Five months later, he is starting to look like a pro who happens to still be in college.
The run of wins started in Columbus, Ohio, on Oct. 4. Dietrich won the Columbus Challenger without dropping a set, beating top seed Darwin Blanch (No. 163) in the quarterfinals and 7-seed Abdullah Shellbayh 6-3, 6-2 in the final. It was his first career Challenger title, in his first Challenger final, and it moved him from No. 363 to No. 263 in the live rankings.
Sioux Falls was a bigger stage. The MarketBeat Open is a Challenger 100 event, a full tier above Columbus, and Dietrich drew top seed Jenson Brooksby in the second round. Dietrich beat Brooksby, ranked No. 94, 6-3, 6-3. It was his first career win over a top-100 player.
He did not drop a set again until the final, where 5-seed Liam Draxl won the first set 6-1. Dietrich won the next two 6-3, 6-4, held all 10 of his service games in those two sets and faced just one break point.
“This one is special,” Dietrich said afterward. He said the title meant even more than Columbus because Sioux Falls was a 100-level event.
The numbers behind the run:
- Ranking: No. 185 in the ATP live rankings as of Monday, up from No. 254 entering Sioux Falls and No. 556 on July 20. It is his first time in the top 200.
- Form: 33-7 in pro matches since June 1, with a 10-match winning streak.
- Consistency: at least the semifinals in his last three Challenger events.
His jump also produced a fun footnote. As of Monday, five current or former Cavaliers are in the ATP’s live top 200: Rafael Jódar (No. 10), Brandon Nakashima (No. 18), Chris Rodesch (No. 177), Dietrich (No. 185) and Iñaki Montes-de la Torre (No. 192).
Jódar, Dietrich’s former teammate, made his top-10 debut on Monday, and Dietrich said watching that rise has changed how the current Cavaliers see the pro tour. “It gave all of us belief,” he said, “because we all practiced with him, lived with him.”
That is the kind of run that usually ends a college career, and Virginia has been here before. A year ago, Jódar was in a similar spot. He won three Challenger titles in 2025, including the Charlottesville Challenger in November, climbed to a career-high No. 166 and qualified for the Next Gen ATP Finals. For a while, it looked like he might return for the spring. Instead, on Dec. 31, he announced he was forgoing his remaining eligibility to turn pro. Ten months later, he has reached the Roland Garros quarterfinals and a Masters 1000 final in Shanghai, and he is the first man to reach the top 10 in his first ATP Tour season.
Dietrich is now ranked close to where Jódar was when he left. He has made it clear his story will end differently.
Until last fall, pro tennis was not even the plan. “The plan was to do an internship in New York, and then work in New York after school,” Dietrich told Cracked Racquets’ Alex Gruskin after beating Brooksby. That changed last fall, a few weeks before the Charlottesville Challenger, after a talk with his coach. Since the NCAA final, he has barely taken time off.
He does not credit the success to a new shot. “I’m not necessarily hitting the ball any better than I have when I arrived first year at UVA,” he said, “but I think I just matured so much.” He pointed to his movement, his work with Virginia’s fitness coach and a calmer approach on court, and to how thin the margins are at this level: “From a guy ranked 500 to a guy 200, it’s two, three points a match.”
After his quarterfinal win, he told Gruskin why he is coming back for one more year, as reported by Division1Tennis.
“There’s just no world now [that I don’t come back],” Dietrich said. “Many people now, especially back home, are telling me ‘why wouldn’t you go pro, why wouldn’t you use this momentum?’ But if you think about it, from where I started at UVA, how much I’ve improved, how much I’ve matured, I should be looking at it almost the other way. I’ve improved so much, let’s squeeze everything possible out this last year.”
Santamarta Roig: a title, and a ticket to Athens
Santamarta Roig did not take the easy route in Las Vegas.
He opened the Dragonbridge Open, an M25 event on the ITF World Tennis Tour, by beating top seed Max Wiskandt 3-6, 6-1, 6-4. From there:
- Second round: beat Georgia’s Noah Johnston 6-3, 6-3
- Quarterfinals: beat Tanishk Konduri 6-7 (4), 6-4, 6-0
- Semifinals: beat 6-seed Jack Anthrop 3-6, 7-6 (4), 6-3
- Final: beat Jerry Roddick 3-6, 6-2, 6-1
Four of his five matches went three sets, and he had to work from behind after losing the first set in all four of them.
The title caps a fall that has already secured his place at the NCAA Individual Championships. At the ITA Atlantic Regional in Blacksburg on Oct. 12, Santamarta Roig beat teammate Stiles Brockett 6-2, 3-6, 6-1 in the singles semifinals to qualify for NCAA singles. That same day, he and third-year Jangjun Kim won the regional doubles title over Virginia Tech’s Blake Hilsen and Eyal Shumilov, 6-7 (3), 6-4, 10-8, which put them in the NCAA doubles draw too.
It is a big step from May. In the national final, Santamarta Roig played No. 4 singles against Texas and lost to Oliver Ojakaar 6-1, 6-4. Coming into this season, Santamarta Roig has demonstrated an improved serve and backhand, which has led to his sophomore leap.
What is next
This week: the Charlottesville Challenger (Nov. 1-8) at the Boar’s Head Sports Club. Both title winners are back home, and Virginia already has a win on the board:
- Jack Kennedy, the No. 1 recruit in the class of 2026, beat No. 275 Hynek Barton 7-5, 1-6, 6-3 on Monday to reach the round of 16.
- Dietrich opens Tuesday against top seed Marcos Giron, ranked No. 88.
- Santamarta Roig received a wild card and plays 5-seed Clement Chidekh (No. 134) on Tuesday.
- Dietrich and Mans Dahlberg, last fall’s NCAA doubles champions, reunite in doubles against 4-seeds Jarno Jans and Joran Vliegen.
- Stiles Brockett beat 12-seed Emile Hudd (No. 461) 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 in the first round of qualifying on Sunday, then lost to 6-seed Andres Martin 6-3, 6-0 in the second round on Monday. Jangjun Kim lost in qualifying to No. 407 Ozan Baris, 6-3, 6-4.
NCAA Individual Championships (Nov. 17-22, Athens, Ga.). Santamarta Roig is in the singles and doubles draws, along with Keegan Rice and Luca Preda in singles and Kim in doubles. Remaining Cavaliers get one more chance to qualify at the ITA Sectionals in Charlottesville, Nov. 5-8. Dietrich, who has not played an ITA event this fall, will not be in Athens, according to Division1Tennis. That says less about Virginia than about where his game is right now.
Dietrich knows how rare this stretch is.
“I’m trying to make the best out of this last year, learn as much as possible and have a good time with the guys as well,” he told Gruskin. “It is truly a special time.”
