No. 57th-ranked Wolfpack started its season strongly as it hosted and conquered all opposition in a double-header held on Saturday at the J.W. Isenhour Tennis Center. The first to fall victim to the Pack was the Davidson Wildcats, who lost 7-0. The second match-up of the day, against UNC-Wilmington, also resulted in a 7-0 victory for the Wolfpack, bringing their season record to 2-0. Coach Jon Choboy was extremely satisfied with his team’s performance.
“It feels good,” Choboy said. “These two teams are quite good. It’s a good win for us. We did a lot of good things. We saw some things that we need to work on but by and large we did a good job.”
The Pack started the day off right with two consecutive doubles wins against Davidson with Jaime Pulgar/Dave Thomsen at no. two and Dominic Hodgson/Jullian Sullivan at no. one, clinching the first available point of the day. Even though they lost the third doubles match, N.C. State went on to win the next six consecutive singles matches, four of which only required two sets to determine the victor.
Later in the day, the Wolfpack faced the Seahawks, whom it made short work of. The Pack played in three doubles and six singles matches, all of which were won, ending the day with a complete sweep of the competition. Redshirt junior Jullian Sullivan recognized the domination his team presented.
“We definitely steamrolled on these guys,” Sullivan said. “I can’t wait to bring it on against any team.”
Coach Choboy, although elated with the victories, still saw the wins as an opportunity to see his players’ current skills and noticed a few things they could work on.
“There’s a lot of little things,” said Choboy. “On doubles, we need to work on return of serve. We also have to finish matches when we’re serving for it at 5-3 or 5-4. We still won the match but we might have gotten broken. We need to do better at finishing from that situation. But again, that should sharpen as we go forward.”
Choboy was also impressed with the performance of the two Spaniards on the team.
“Ivan Sanchez has played very well,” said Choboy. “Which, for him to do it in a match, is a good sign. He’s only a freshman and we’re getting to know him and how he competes. To see him play sharper in matches is a plus. Jaime [Pulgar] played exceptionally well as well. He’s always going to get their best since he’s ranked pretty high in the country. He showed a lot of maturity and poise and came back and won and did a really good job of doing it.”
Pulgar, ranked no. 61st in the nation, is very optimistic about what these two victories show for the potential of himself and the rest of the team.
“I think they play really well,” said Pulgar. “I think if we are disciplined and make first serves and returns, we will be fine. If you do that well you are going to win a lot of matches in college. We have a long way to go and a lot of margin for improvement.”
