The No. 23 NC State men’s tennis team took down the No. 26 Notre Dame Fighting Irish 4-3 in South Bend, Indiana on Sunday, April 3. 

The Wolfpack (14-7, 3-5 ACC) defeated the Fighting Irish (14-10, 4-6 ACC) in a hotly contested match that came down to the final game. 

Despite coming away with the victory, the contest was anything but easy for the Wolfpack, which gave up the doubles point before taking four of the six singles matches into third-set tiebreakers. 

Notre Dame managed to take the first doubles win of the match as graduate student Collin Shick and freshman Fons Van Sambeek fell on court two to the Fighting Irish duo of junior Connor Fu and graduate student Peter Conklin.

Sophomore Braden Shick and redshirt senior Joseph Schrader then took down graduate student Aditya Vashistha and junior Matthew Che 6-3 on court three but the Fighting Irish would take the first point of the match. 

Sophomore Jean-Marc Malkowski and junior Matthew Halpin took down the Wolfpack duo of No. 19 junior Robin Catry and sophomore Luca Staeheli. Catry and Staeheli fell 6-4, but the doubles play was just the appetizer for what would be a thrilling singles contest. 

The Wolfpack evened the score on court six of singles play. Braden Shick got his second win of the day when he took down Braeden Ho 6-2, 6-3. Then, the Wolfpack doubled its tally when Catry took down Conklin 7-6, 6-4 on court four. 

Next, the Wolfpack secured another point after a back-and-forth match between junior Martins Rocens and Fu saw Rocens come out on top. The two traded 6-3 set wins, before Rocens closed out the match in the third set, winning 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 on court three. 

Court five saw the Fighting Irish get a point back. Van Sambeek fell to Malkowski in yet another third-set tiebreaker. Malkowski closed out the match, winning 6-2, 3-6, 7-5. Then, Notre Dame managed to even the score at 3-3 when Aditya Vashistha took down No. 82 senior Rafa Izquierdo Luque 6-3, 3-6, 6-4.

This meant the court two match between Staeheli and Che was the decider. Staeheli and the Wolfpack ended up coming out on top, as Staeheli won 7-5, 4-6, 6-3. 

Next up for the Wolfpack is a four-match home stretch, leading up to the ACC Championships on April 20.