No. 19 NC State men’s tennis finished off a month-long nonconference road trip with a match at Princeton on Friday night. The Wolfpack played its third Ivy League squad of the season, and unlike its matches against Columbia and Harvard, the red-and-white beat its opponent, 4-1, in Princeton, New Jersey.
With the win, the Pack bounced back from a 4-1 loss to No. 6 Columbia in New York City. Before that though, NC State had won three straight matches, including two against ranked teams.
The Tigers (7-3) and Wolfpack (6-2) have faced each other the last five seasons, with NC State winning every meeting. On Friday night, the Pack extended its undefeated streak against the Tigers to five matches with the 4-1 win.
To start the match, NC State took the doubles point on the back of their newly ranked No. 33 pair of redshirt freshman Jules Leroux and senior Luca Staeheli. While Leroux and Staeheli took down their ranked opponents in a close, 7-5 bout on court 1, the pair of freshman Noah Gabriel and redshirt freshman William Manning secured a 6-4 victory on court 3.
While the pair of junior Martin Borisiouk and senior Braden Shick were battling on court 2 at 6-6, their teammates moved the Pack into singles with a 1-0 lead.
No. 16 Shick, who recently moved up in the ITA rankings, played a highly anticipated top-25 match against Princeton’s No. 20 Paul Inchauspe. Shick downed Inchauspe with ease in a 6-3, 6-2 rout on court 1 to move the Wolfpack out to a 2-0 lead.
Next, No. 110 Staeheli took down his opponent on court 3. Despite having to battle for a 7-5 win in his first set, Staeheli closed down and won his second set 6-2 to put the Pack in clinch position at 3-0.
Princeton won its only match of the day once Staeheli beat his opponent. The Tigers struck on court 6 in a two-set, 7-5, 6-1 win over Gabriel to inch closer to NC State at 3-1. However, the red-and-white ended things with a win from Manning over Princeton’s Evan Wen on court 5 where Manning needed a tiebreak to put his opponent away.
Manning’s eventual 6-4, 7-6 (10-8) win clinched the Pack’s 4-1 win in New Jersey. Leroux and No. 45 Borisiouk’s matches both went unfinished after NC State secured its sixth victory of the season.
While NC State finished its scheduled road trip, it still won’t play in Raleigh for another few weeks. With a recent win over then-No. 9 Mississippi State at the ITA Kickoff Weekend, NC State punched its ticket to the ITA Indoor Championships in Dallas, Texas.
The Wolfpack will begin competing in the final stage of the annual event on Friday, Feb. 14 before returning home for a match against UNC-Greensboro on Sunday, Feb. 23.
