The No. 3 NC State women’s tennis team will be back in Raleigh this weekend for some tough conference play at J.W. Isenhour Tennis Center. The Pack will face No. 12 Wake Forest on Friday and No. 13 Virginia on Sunday.
The Wolfpack has been on a nice streak recently, pulling out some hard-fought wins against No. 9 Georgia at the ITA Team Indoor National Championship and No. 32 Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. More narrow matches are probably in NC State’s future as both of their conference opponents this weekend are top 15 in the country.
Wake Forest has some impressive victories under its belt coming into this weekend, most recently beating No. 5 Princeton to claim the Blue Gray Tennis Classic title. The Demon Deacons’ singles players continued to show their prowess as they only suffered one singles loss and No. 29 sophomore Carolyn Campana continued her hot streak, defeating No. 17 Brianna Shvets from Princeton.
Wake Forest also crushed No. 37 Clemson 7-0 on the road, again helped by wins from Campana as well as the Demon Deacons’ No. 11 doubles team of Eliza Omirou and Mary Caroline Meredith.
NC State has good depth with its doubles teams as well, with No. 2 duo sophomore Alana Smith and senior Anna Rogers, as well as No. 13 duo junior Jaeda Daniel and senior Adriana Reami playing very well right now.
Although Rogers and Smith did suffer a loss against Notre Dame, they brought it back with a 6-4 win against Louisville last Sunday, NC State’s only doubles win that day. NC State looked very good in singles play last weekend, losing only twice to Notre Dame and once to Louisville. Good singles play is going to be essential if the Pack wants wins this weekend, as both Wake Forest and Virginia have multiple players in the top 100.
Virginia has four, including No. 15 Natasha Subhash, who was unstoppable in Virginia’s last match against Clemson, winning 6-1 and 6-2. Virginia was on fire that day, only losing one singles match. How Virginia plays against No. 1 North Carolina this Friday will probably be a good indicator of how they’ll look on Sunday against State, as Virginia is unproven on the road.
It is going to be an exciting weekend regardless, as all teams are incredibly talented and undoubtedly hungry for some conference wins.
The Feb. 28 matchup against Wake Forest will begin at 2 p.m., and the match against Virginia will start at 1 p.m. on March 1.
