The NC State men’s tennis team traveled to Madison, Wisconsin this weekend to compete in the ITA National Men’s Indoor Championship, falling in all three of its ranked matchups.
Ranked at No. 10 in the country, the team qualified for the championship after going 2-0 in the ITA Kickoff Weekend over Utah State and then-No. 23 Virginia. The big tournament this past weekend had 16 of the best men’s tennis teams in the country.
NC State played one match each of the three days, falling 4-3 to No. 8 Stanford on Friday, 4-0 to No. 11 TCU on Saturday and 4-0 to No. 16 UCLA on Sunday. It would’ve been nice to pick up a ranked win, but it’s tough with a brutal schedule and a lot of top teams.
After the TCU match, even head coach Kyle Spencer mentioned to NC State Athletics how small the margins are in the tournament and how good all the teams are. For the most part, as many postseason tournaments go, any of the top teams can win any match.
In the closest match against Stanford, NC State took the doubles point behind the No. 44 ranked duo of senior Alexis Galarneau and junior Robert Turzak, and the 12th ranked duo of Tadas Babelis and sophomore Yannai Barkai.
In singles, Stanford won the first three singles but Galarneau got a huge win over No. 16 Axel Geller and sophomore Rafa Izquierdo Luque tied the team score at 3-3 with one singles match left. Unfortunately for NC State, freshman Robin Catry lost a close third set and the Pack fell in the first round.
The Pack was not able to get a point for the rest of the weekend, getting shut out against TCU and UCLA, but especially against Stanford, NC State battled in every set and played a lot of close ones.
NC State men’s tennis will travel down the road to Cary Tennis Park on Sunday, March 1 to face Texas at noon and North Carolina A&T at 4 p.m. before getting to ACC play.
