The N.C. State men’s tennis team dominated the Wisconsin Badgers on Tuesday afternoon, winning the contest 7-0.
The match, played in Raleigh, was State’s third straight victory.
“The guys did a good job,” head coach Jon Choboy said. “It was tough conditions out there. It was a little bit on the windy side, not the ideal conditions to play outside. But our guys are pretty mentally tough and they’ve played a lot of good teams this year. [Wisconsin] tried to challenge us on some of these courts but we met the challenge pretty well.”
The Wolfpack (10-6, 3-1 ACC) came out of the gates hot and won the doubles point. Senior Dave Thomson and junior Sean Weber, the No. 12 doubles team in the nation, won the No. 1 doubles match by a score of 8-5.
Sophomore Robbie Mudge and freshman Thomas Weigel quickly solidified State’s lead, blitzing Wisconsin’s No. 2 doubles team en route to an 8-2 victory.
The news wasn’t all rosy for the Red and White. Sophomores Beck Bond and Austin Powell lost their No. 3 doubles match 8-4.
However, State’s wins at No. 1 and No. 2 doubles gave the Wolfpack two wins out of three doubles matches, ensuring N.C. State’s possession of the all-important doubles point. The Wisconsin contest marks the sixth straight contest in which the Red Terrors have won the doubles point.
“We’ve taken a couple of matches this year without the doubles point, but we’ve lost a couple with it,” Choboy said. “I’d certainly rather have it.”
“I think we’ve got pretty good doubles teams,” Choboy said. “The guys work real hard at it and we spend a lot of time on it at practice. I think we’re doing some pretty good things with the guys for doubles.”
After claiming the doubles point, the match moved on to singles play and State continued its domination. Mudge, Thomson, Bond and senior Rafael Paez all registered straight set wins for the Wolfpack.
The straight sets singles wins, combined with the doubles point, made the overall match score 5-0, giving State an insurmountable lead.
Powell, playing at No. 2 singles, split the first two sets with his opponent and went to a full third set. Powell jumped out to a quick lead and never surrendered the advantage, fighting his way to a victorious 6-2 third set.
Weigel lost the first set of his No. 3 singles match and fought hard to stay alive. At 5-5 in the second set with the game score at deuce, Weigel fired a backhand pass down the line to get a break point opportunity, which he converted.
After closing out the second set, Weigel finished his match by winning the third set tiebreak and giving State a clean sweep of singles matches.
“I’m pleased to pick up another win,” head coach John Choboy said. “Obviously a midweek match, it’s a little bit of a challenge. We’ve had a lot of tennis in the last 72 hours with some travel in there for us.”
“It was very nice because our last matches were all pretty tough,” Weigel said. “So it was nice to get a quite easy win today.”
The Wolfpack’s next match will be at home against Florida State on Friday at 2:30 p.m.
