No. 10 NC State men’s tennis opened its ACC portion of its season against No. 17 California and was spurred on by a riled-up crowd at the J.W. Isenhour Tennis Center.
The crowd of Wolfpack fans cheered on and on as the Wolfpack fought its way to its first ACC win of the season in a 4-2 rout over the Golden Bears.
NC State nabbed an early lead after a close doubles round, but the crowd pushed the Pack’s players to the three wins it needed in singles to clinch the match.
“It’s nice to feel the home-court advantage and to get the crowd in,” said head coach Kyle Spencer. “But they were fantastic tonight and really brought home the guys that were closing out matches.”
Early in the match, NC State battled for a close win in the early doubles round. Junior Martin Borisiouk and redshirt freshman William Manning took Court 3 in a 6-2 rout. However, NC State was forced to fight tooth and nail on Courts 1 and 2.
The No. 22 pair of redshirt freshman Jules Leroux and Luca Staeheli were locked in a back-and-forth battle on Court 2 against Cal’s No. 25-ranked pair. Each side swapped games until they moved into a tiebreaker to decide the match. Meanwhile, the pair of No. 17 seniors Braden Shick and Fons Van Sambeek were working their way back from a 4-2 deficit on Court 1.
“We had to fight back,” Spencer said. “We had to really fight and we got down some early breaks for whatever reason. And the boys did a really good job of kind of staying in there and not giving up. And that we flipped both of the matches that we were down, and when we finished, we were in the tiebreaker, at the number two. So that was awesome. And yeah, super proud of how we fought.”
While both teams looked as though they could clinch the doubles win, Shick and Van Sambeek completed their 7-5 win in an exciting doubles round to gain a 1-0 lead for NC State.
NC State moved into singles and built off its momentum from its close doubles victory. No. 107 Staeheli pulled off a ranked, upset victory over Cal’s No. 32 Theo Dean. The senior’s quick 6-1, 6-3 win was similar to the fast pace of the matches on other courts, all of which wrapped up in just two sets.
The two sides exchanged singles wins from there on out. The Golden Bears got on the board with a win from their No. 70 Alex Chang who pulled off his own ranked, upset victory over NC State’s No. 25 Borissiouk in a 6-2, 6-2 result.
NC State took the next match with a win from Van Sambeek on Court 4 over Cal’s Timofey Stepanov in a 6-2, 6-1 match. Cal continued the exchange with a 6-1, 6-4 win over freshman Nikolay Nedelchev on Court 6.
With just Leroux and No. 24 Shick battling Cal’s formidable No. 5 Carl Emil Overbeck on Court 1, NC State needed just one of their players to win to clinch the match. While Shick was battling early in his third set, Leroux was closing in on his victory on the back of his home crowd.
“It feels good to be the last match with all the crowd watching you,” Leroux said. “I mean, Braden was also playing, but he was starting his third set, so all the eyes were on me and the other team [yelling] is pushing you to give your best. And that’s why I think I did good at the end.”
Despite a slow start, the freshman clinched NC State’s first ACC win of the season with a 6-4, 6-4 victory. After being on the road for more than a month, the redshirt freshman said clinching in front of his home crowd was nothing like winning or clinching on the road.
“That does not feel the same than winning at home with the crowd cheering for you,” Leroux said. “The crowd was actually amazing tonight. With the lights on, it was a super, super good atmosphere also, so happy to clinch at home.”
After the win, NC State looks to an even tougher test on Sunday against No. 6 Stanford. Spencer acknowledged the storied Cardinal team but was confident in his team’s ability to play with anyone in the nation.
“The one thing I know that we’re going to do is we’re going to fight in every position — one through three in the doubles and one through six in the singles,” Spencer said. “We’re going to fight, and we’re going to play for each other. And so to me, if we go and do those things, we’ll be in every match, and then it will just be how we handle certain situations.”
First serve against Stanford is set for 1 p.m. on Sunday in Raleigh.
