No. 6 NC State men’s tennis tied its highest-ever ranking under head coach Kyle Spencer last week after beating then-No. 6 Stanford.
After this week’s round of new rankings, the Wolfpack will likely surpass that all-time high under Spencer.
The red-and-white walked into Charlottesville, Virginia and beat the No. 5 Cavaliers 4-3 in a heavyweight ACC matchup. The Pack’s win over the Cavs is good for its fourth top-10 win of the season.
NC State and Virginia went blow-for-blow in the bout. By the end of the match, the outcome came down to the Wolfpack’s No. 41 junior Martin Borisiouk and the Cavs’ No. 22 Dylan Dietrich.
After splitting the first two sets by scores of 7-5 and 7-6 (7-5), Dietrich and Borisiouk engaged in one final, grueling set with everything on the line. Battling to the very end, Borisiouk eventually outlasted one of the best and most revered college tennis players in the nation 7-5, heroically winning the deciding court to earn his team a win at 4-3.
NC State was forced to overcome a 1-0 deficit once singles started after losing two out of three doubles courts in the early round. The No. 67 pair of Dietrich and Mans Dahlberg downed NC State’s top pair, No. 8 seniors Fons Van Sambeek and Braden Shick, 7-5 to start the round. NC State responded with a win on Court 3 from redshirt freshman William Manning and Borisiouk in a 6-4 victory.
However, Virginia took the deciding court over the No. 12 pair of senior Luca Staeheli and freshman Jules Leroux for the early advantage.
Leroux responded in singles with a 6-4, 6-3 win on Court 5 to even NC State back up with the Cavs at 1-1. From there, NC State and Virginia continued to trade blows — No. 18 Rafael Jodar downed No. 24 Shick on Court 1 in straight sets to put Virginia back out in front while a 6-2, 6-3 win from No. 55 Staeheli on Court 3 evened the score once again.
The Wolfpack took its first lead of the day thanks to a win from Manning on Court 6. Despite losing his first set, the redshirt freshman took his next two for a 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 win to put the Pack in clinch position.
Virginia earned its last win of the day via a three-set victory on Court 4 over Van Sambeek. From there, it all came down to Borisiouk and Dietrich on Court 2. When Borisiouk was finished, NC State had impressively beaten its fourth top-10 team of the season.
The Wolfpack will finish its short road trip with a stop in Blacksburg, Virginia for a match with Virginia Tech on Sunday. First serve against the Hokies is set for 1 p.m.
