After dominating all season long in doubles, graduate student Jaeda Daniel and senior Nell Miller won NC State’s first-ever national title as the top-seeded duo won the 2022 NCAA Doubles Championship on Saturday, May 28.
After achieving the No. 1 rank in the country by the end of the regular season, which was a record-breaking accomplishment for the program, Daniel and Miller set their eyes on the NCAA Championship. After tearing through opponent after opponent, the pair emerged victorious, putting on a grand finale at the end of what was already an incredible 2022 season from the NC State women’s tennis team.
Daniel and Miller won their final match in straight sets against another ACC duo hailing from Miami. To start the match, the Pack’s dynamic duo did what it had done so well all season and ran through the first set 6-2. While the two were challenged much more in the second set, Miami’s opposition was nothing the Wolfpack women couldn’t handle, claiming the national championship title with their 6-2, 7-5 win.
However, to get to the final, Daniel and Miller persevered through four other opponents on the way to their national championship victory. The duo started their campaign off strong, downing representatives from UCLA, 6-2, 7-6 (4).
Next up was Daniel and Miller’s three-set victory over Oklahoma. After splitting the first two sets, the pair clutched out the deciding tiebreaker to move on to the quarterfinal round of the tournament with 6-1, 3-6, 1-0 (10-8) win.
As they progressed their competition only got tougher, evidenced by the quarterfinal match against Vanderbilt. After once again splitting the first two sets, the Pack was forced into another super breaker to decide the match. Down 2-4 in the breaker, the pair once again relied upon their clutch genes and won eight out of the final ten points to move on to the semifinals, winning 6-4, 4-6, 1-0 (10-6).
To get them to the final, Daniel and Miller impressively defeated Pepperdine’s duo in straight sets, 7-5, 6-4 after being down 1-4 in the second set.
NC State’s other doubles pair also competed but couldn’t find as much success as its Wolfpack teammates. The No. 24 ranked pair of sophomores Abigail Rencheli and Amelia Rajecki was also a stalwart of the Pack’s lineup all season long, but after facing representatives from Tulane, the pair lost 6-4, 6-2, but will no doubt continue to play a pivotal role in the Pack’s success in future seasons.
While Rencheli, Rajecki and Miller will all return for next season, Daniel ended her career with NC State in the best way possible. After dominating in both singles and doubles for the Wolfpack, she finished her career with a national championship win.
After dominating all season long in doubles, earning a single season-high 26 victories and successfully establishing themselves as one of, if not the best doubles team in the nation, Daniel and Miller stepped up when it counted the most and showed why they were the favorites entering the tournament, successfully cementing themselves in program and NCAA history.
Match after match, Daniel and Miller tore through their opponents as they engineered a title run for the books. In what was a monumental achievement for the NC State tennis program, they added some hardware that put the finishing touches on a sensational season for the duo and the NC State women’s tennis team.
