No. 21 NC State men’s tennis defeated Old Dominion 6-1 at J.W. Isenhour Tennis Center Sunday for the team’s seventh win.

The Wolfpack (7-2) won two out of three in doubles against the Monarchs (4-3). It was the only small victory the Monarchs saw as five of six members of the Pack won their singles matches. Some of the Pack’s players did struggle a bit to hold their ground, but persevered to bring about a team victory.

“I thought it was a really good, close tennis match,” said head coach Kyle Spencer. “ODU gave us a great test, and I think we were able to really fight super hard. And we flipped the doubles; we were down a break at two doubles, and we ended up winning that one to clinch the doubles point. And then for an hour and a half, it was a real match that could have gone either way. I was really proud of our guys for their intensity. I don’t know if we necessarily played our best, but we definitely fought to the level that I’m super proud of.”

Starting off with doubles, duo junior Alexis Galarneau and redshirt senior Michael Ogden struggled against the No. 25 duo senior Aziz Kijametovic and junior Francois Musitelli, 4-2. Although the pair tried to close the gap, the Monarchs powered through and won 6-3.

Senior Georgiy Malyshev and sophomore Tadas Babelis finished strong with a 6-2 win to take away the Monarchs’ 1-0 advantage in the doubles portion of the game.

Duo seniors Igor and Ivan Saveljic faced their own challenges in doubles. It was a tight match that went into overtime, 7-5. Their win gave the Pack the 2-0 advantage in doubles to end the first part of the match 1-0.

“I think the team’s performance was pretty good,” said sophomore Robert Turzak. “We knew it was going to be a big fight, and that’s how it was. I think the guys did a really good job. Tadas, he finished his match pretty easy; Alexis fought till the end. I got a pretty tough match; I was 6-0, 2-0 down, but then I came back.”

Heading into singles, Babelis and freshman Yannai Barkai shone with a win in two rounds. Babelis started strong with a 3-0 head start in the first set before finishing 6-3. In the second set, Babelis kept the lead until Monarchs sophomore Jannik Giesse tied up the score 5-5, but ultimately Babelis finished the set off 7-5.

Barkai started off down 2-1 before he turned it around at 4-3 and prevented opponent freshman Oliver Tobisch from scoring any further. Barkai took the first set 6-3 and the second set in a similar fashion of 6-4.

With Barkai’s win, the Pack was up 6-0 against the Monarchs.

No. 45 Galarneau defeated No. 93 Kijametovic in the second and third sets after losing the first set 6-4. Galarneau turned it around, though, to win his sets 6-3 and 6-4, respectively.

Igor Saveljic’s match was one of stamina and perseverance, as he took the first set 6-3 but lost the second set in a close 7-5. The real challenge came in the third set, when Saveljic narrowly finished 7-6. In the third set, Saveljic started down 2-0 but finally took the lead after tying the score 5-5.

“We don’t talk about score so much while we’re playing,” Spencer said. “We talk a lot about how we’re going to play the next point and we talk about having a good performance, and I think that’s what the guys did.”

Turzak’s match was a comeback after losing the first set in a sweep, 6-0. The second set seemed to be a setup for another loss for Turzak, but he turned it around to win 6-3. Keeping his momentum, Turzak cleaned up the third set 6-1.

“I was trying to do my stuff in the first set,” Turzak said. “It wasn’t that bad. I just lost some really important shots, some important points. I’d just try to keep doing what I’m doing, and get better and better and try to get loose, because I was a bit tight and nervous in the beginning.”

The final match of the day was Malyshev, who started off with a strong 3-0 and finished his first set 6-3. The next two sets were losses for Malyshev. In the second set, Malyshev was up 5-4 before being overtaken by Luca Maldoner 7-5.

“I think we have to improve a lot mentally,” Turzak said. “We have a really tough schedule ahead. Our ACC season starts next week, so we play Tennessee, which is a ranked team, Friday, and then we have a double-header Sunday against Virginia Tech.”

The Wolfpack will return to J.W. Isenhour Tennis Center to face off against Tennessee this Friday at 3 p.m.