The men’s tennis team was defeated 6-1 by No. 47 Florida State on Friday and fell 5-2 to No. 28 Miami on Sunday at Pullen Park. These two losses brought the No. 59 Wolfpack’s record to 8-11 and marked its seventh straight loss in ACC play. Redshirt junior Julian Sullivan, the only player to win in both competitions, believes team suffers from a confidence issue.
“I had lost about five in a row [before Friday],” Sullivan said. “I was kind of down on myself a lot. I’ve been beating myself up on the court. I need to calm down and have some fun, and gain some confidence back. On Friday, I had all kinds of confidence and I said there was no way I was going to let myself lose those matches. I won 6-2, 6-4. That was me being me; having fun and being confident.”
On Friday, the Pack dropped all three doubles matches to the Seminoles to give up the first available point. Sullivan then secured a one-sided victory, but would be the only State player to win. Coach Jon Choboy blames the team’s recent inability to round out wins to several factors related to maturity.
“There’s a host of little things that are going on,” Choboy said. “We’ve got a number of variables that don’t really have anything to do with tennis, per se, whether there is adversity with injuries or illness or whatever. We’re not handling the pressure situations on the court maturely enough. We’re getting ourselves in positions to win games, sets and matches and that is when you’ve got to be your mentally toughest. On this level, you’ve got to give good plays. It’s all about execution. The ability level of our team is not really in question. We’re right there. They’ve [Miami] got four or five seniors on their team and they play like it. We don’t. And we play like it. We’ve got to grow up.”
On Sunday, N.C. State started strongly with an 8-4 doubles win by junior Dominic Hodgson and senior Rob Lowe. However, the other two doubles team failed to perform. Sullivan once again had a strong showing, coming back for the Pack and ending the first singles match with a victory. Sophomore Dave Thomson, who has made a recent return to form, rallied his way back to victory after losing the first set. Choboy was happy to see Thomson return to his winning ways.
“To be honest, I’ve felt bad for Dave [Thomson],” Choboy said. “Dave [Thomson] really wants to win. He really competes and tries as hard as he can. He’s been in a slump and it’s not uncommon for a person to go through this, at all. He might have not thought that he would go through this and this is probably the first time this has happened to him in his life. This is a kid that has won a lot of matches for us. We believe in him and I think he will pay big dividends for us down the road.”
Thomson was thrilled to once again show that he can still win matches the way he has been accustomed to.
“I feel pretty good,” Thomson said. “It’s been a long time coming, to be honest. Julian [Sullivan] and I have been going through the same thing; it’s certainly been a struggle along the way. It’s been a confidence slump. I asked him and he said he just came out to enjoy tennis. I haven’t been doing that; I haven’t been playing the way I want to be playing.
“It may look like it on paper that the guys are beating Dave Thomson. The guys aren’t beating the real Dave Thomson. I said today that I’m going to play the way I want to play, win or lose. At the least, if I lose, I’m going to come out a better player. Even if it takes forever, I know I’m going to get there eventually. I kept my confidence and in the second set they came and in the third set they came; it was nice to be rewarded for having that trust in my own abilities. I’ve definitely been struggling with that the last few weeks; it’s a turning point for me and I want to come back and perform well for the rest of the season.”
The team expects to prove its worth in the ACC this weekend when it hosts Virginia on Friday and Virginia Tech on Sunday at Pullen Park.