While No. 22 NC State men’s tennis fell in its first ranked match of the season against Harvard, the Wolfpack bounced back in a big way in its second ranked battle of the season against No. 9 Mississippi State.
Competing in the ITA Kickoff Weekend, the Pack (4-1) earned the opportunity to play the hosting Bulldogs (6-1) on Sunday with a chance to advance to the ITA National Team Indoor Championships in February. Not only did the red-and-white punch its ticket to the next stage of the mid-season tournament with a victory, but it beat the hosts with little mercy in a dominant 4-1 win in Starkville, Mississippi.
The Wolfpack snatched the all-important doubles point from the Bulldogs early on the back of an upset victory from the pair of No. 102 juniors Braden Shick and Fons Van Sambeek. After a similar victory over LSU’s 28th-ranked pair in the nation on Saturday, the duo of juniors pulled another daring upset, this time over Mississippi State’s No. 9 Petar Jovanovic and Sanchez Martinez.
After an equally impressive upset doubles win from redshirt freshman Jules Leroux and senior Luca Staeheli over Mississippi State’s No. 20 Niccolo Baroni and Mario Martinez Serrano, Shick and Van Sambeek finished off their heart-pounding victory via tiebreaker with a final score of 7-6, (7-4).
Up 1-0, Staeheli followed his doubles win with a victory in singles — the senior doubled the Pack’s lead with a 6-0, 6-4 win on court three. Mississippi State responded with its only point of the match via a straight sets win over Van Sambeek on court four from No. 72 Baroni.
However, up 2-1, NC State kept its eye on the ball and advanced its lead to 3-1 with a win from newly ranked No. 17 Shick on court one over No. 45 Jovanovic. Shick had to battle via tiebreak to win his second set in the 6-2, 7-6 (7-4) ranked win.
To clinch the match, Leroux came in clutch and finished off the Bulldogs with a 6-4, 6-4 win on court six as the Wolfpack punched its ticket to the ITA National Team Indoor Championships in Texas.
The win over Mississippi State qualified as the team’s first top-10 win since 2022 and registers as one of, if not the most impressive wins for the program in recent memory.
NC State will travel to the hosting Baylor and SMU on Feb. 14 to compete in the ITA National Team Indoor Championships. Between now and then, the Pack will play a slew of nonconference matches, the next three of which will be on the road.
The red-and-white will first travel to Ann Arbor, Michigan to take on the No. 25 Wolverines on Friday. Play against Michigan is set to begin at 5 p.m. EST.
