After 18 days off from play, No. 17 NC State men’s tennis resumed its 2024 campaign with a clean, 7-0 sweep over the visiting Campbell Camels in a midweek match at the J.W. Isenhour Tennis Center in Raleigh. 

While the Camels (5-4) took it to the Wolfpack (5-3) on two doubles courts and two singles courts by forcing tiebreaks, NC State won nearly every single set, ultimately allowing the red-and-white to blank its local foes. 

The red-and-white won a tense doubles round, one that needed two nail-biting tiebreaks to decide. After juniors Braden Shick and Fons Van Sambeek won in dominant fashion 6-0, the Camels sat down seniors Robin Catry and Luca Staeheli 7-6 (7-5) with a match-deciding tiebreaker. 

NC State came through on its second tiebreaker of the round, however. With the doubles point on the line, juniors Damien Salvestre and Joseph Wayand stepped up and won 7-6 (7-4) to decide the round. 

With a 1-0 lead, the red-and-white got to work in singles with a dominant start to the round. The Pack won every first set in singles. While dropping two second sets, the Pack won the other four matches in straight sets and its two three-setters via a third-set super tiebreaker. 

Salvestre doubled his team’s lead with an easy 6-0, 6-1 victory on court five. Staeheli followed suit with a 6-3, 6-1 win on court four. In the blink of an eye NC State was up 3-0 and refused to slow down. 

No. 109 Shick clinched the contest with a 6-3, 6-4 win on court three over Campbell’s Lukas Steffen. With its fifth win of the season in the books, No. 124 Wayand fought through a contested first set but cruised through his second for a 7-5, 6-1 win that put the Pack up 5-0. 

Next, No. 61 Catry won a grueling three-set match that included two tiebreakers. The senior took his first set 7-6 (7-2), but fell 6-4 in the second. With the overall match already clinched, Catry took out his opponent 10-4 in his third-set superbreaker. 

To finish off the sweep, Van Sambeek also won via superbreaker. However, the junior won the breaker by a whopping score of 18-16. Before going back and forth with his opponent, Van Sambeek won his first but dropped his second set for a final score of 6-4, 6-3, 1-0 (18-16). 

After the Wolfpack’s 7-0 sweep over the Camels, NC State is set for a doubleheader against Elon and NC Central on Sunday, Feb. 25. First serve against the Phoenix is set for noon while NC State will start play against the Eagles at 4 p.m.