Rain or shine, inside or out, No. 8 NC State women’s tennis didn’t let Virginia get the better of it any longer.
After the Cavaliers defeated the Pack twice last season, including sending the red-and-white home in the 2022 ACC tournament, NC State exacted its revenge on No. 9 Virginia (16-4, 9-2 ACC) by playing a dominant match. Despite a weather delay and moving indoors, the Wolfpack (19-4, 8-3 ACC) ruthlessly clinched the match at 4-0 before finishing the day with a 5-2 win — another impressive feat for the squad after beating Texas by the same score just days before.
“[It’s been] kind of painful against Virginia I would say,” said head coach Simon Earnshaw. “They obviously were a [2022 NCAA Tournament] elite eight team as well, got a great program, a top-10 program. So yeah, we had something to work with coming off the Texas match and I think that helped us, and it was great for us to be able to get one back on Virginia.”
To start, the Wolfpack took the all-important doubles point with wins on courts one and two. First, No. 11 freshman Diana Shnaider and graduate student Alana Smith earned a ranked, 6-3 win on one, and No. 12 fifth-year senior Nell Miller and junior Amelia Rajecki finished the round off with their own ranked, 6-3 win.
Once singles rolled around, the Pack turned up the heat even more, sitting the Hoos down 1, 2, 3 on courts one, two and three. Even with a 30-minute rain delay moving play indoors, NC State’s players didn’t lose their momentum after the break.
No. 15 Shnaider secured the first of the Wolfpack’s singles wins with a ruthless display on court one. The star freshman proved that she was on a different level than her opponent — No. 60 Natasha Subhash — by winning in straight sets.
“It was an important match for the team,” Shnaider said. “So it was just like: focus on every point, because I know that it’s important for me, for the team, for the coaches that [Virginia] is a good team. So I was like: I need to stay focused, I need to try and do my best as I can.”
Shnaider’s best resulted in a near-perfect, 6-0, 6-1 win for the No. 88 player in the world — her second singles victory in a row.
“Diana was definitely on today,” Earnshaw said. “To beat a player like Subhash the way she did, I mean I think we saw her quality and the level that she can have.”
Shnaider wasn’t the only one to roll her opponent, however. In fact, No. 13 Smith and No. 25 Rajecki both captured straight-set wins on the next two courts to clinch the match at 4-0. Smith won via a 6-3, 6-1 decision on court two while Rajecki clinched the match with her 6-3, 6-4 win on three.
After the clinch, Virginia took two out of the three remaining matches. First, the Cavs got the better of No. 71 junior Abigail Rencheli, but only after beating her in a tense, match-deciding superbreaker on court four. To close out the match, junior Gina Dittmann sent her opponent packing with a dominant 6-2, 6-0 win.
However, Virginia got the last laugh of the day with a two-set win over junior Sophie Abrams on court five, landing the final score at 5-2.
NC State’s win over the Hoos isn’t only significant in terms of the team’s history — this late-season bout had major postseason implications for both squads. In fact, the Wolfpack has a good chance of seeing the Cavaliers once again, whether in the NCAA tournament, or the fast-approaching ACC tournament.
No matter who the Wolfpack faces in the conference championships and beyond, it’ll have to compete with some of the best teams in college tennis.
“We have a really good conference,” Shnaider said. “Here, every team is really good, and we’re gonna stay tough, stay together and we will do our best, we’ll keep fighting and we’ll see how it will be, but for sure, we’ll give them a really good fight.”
Before the postseason gets started, though, the red-and-white is set to face Virginia Tech on Senior Day for its regular-season finale on Sunday, April 16 at 1 p.m.
