After a hot start to its 2024 campaign, No. 21 NC State men’s tennis suffered its first loss of the season in a 6-1 defeat at No. 11 Harvard.
The Wolfpack’s (2-1) first road match of the season didn’t go as it had planned. Riding high after dominant wins against Northwestern and Princeton at home, NC State sputtered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, against a dangerous and experienced Crimson (1-1) squad.
Harvard, who carved out a run in 2023 to the Sweet Sixteen Round of the NCAA Tournament, came out firing in both doubles and singles. NC State turned in a worse result against the Crimson than its 4-3 defeat last season in Raleigh. While the Wolfpack put up a fight, especially in singles, its opposition came out on the winning side of every three-set match to win it.
Harvard gained leads on all three doubles courts to start the match. Junior Braden Shick and senior Luca Staeheli were the first to fall. Their 6-4 defeat on court three was followed by senior Robin Catry and junior Fons Van Sambeek’s 6-3 loss on court one. While junior Joseph Wayand and sophomore Martin Borisiouk’s match on court two didn’t finish, they didn’t fare much better than NC State’s other pairs.
Once up 1-0, Harvard kept its foot on the gas. The Crimson quickly downed Catry on court one in two sets — the Pack’s only straight-sets loss of the day.
Facing a 2-0 deficit, Wayand got NC State on the board with a 6-2, 7-5 win. Wayand’s had to battle for his two other singles wins on the season, and showed even more grit against the Crimson. Those two other wins both came in three sets, but the junior was able to win in straight sets in Cambridge for the Pack’s only point of the day.
Harvard won the next four singles matches to wrap up its 6-1 win in spite of inspiring efforts from the rest of the Wolfpack. Each of NC State’s remaining players forced three-set matches that gave the red-and-white a chance to pull out an upset over the Crimson. In the end, Harvard’s players got the better of its opposition on each of those remaining courts.
Staeheli was downed 6-2, 2-6, 6-3 to put the Pack down 3-1. Harvard capitalized on its chance to clinch with a similar three-set win over Borisiouk on court six that put the match out of reach for NC State. To finish it off, Van Sambeek lost 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 and Shick fell 5-7, 6-2, 6-2.
Despite the final score, NC State put up an admirable effort against one of the nation’s best teams. As a litmus test for the rest of the Pack’s season, NC State will have to take close matches in order to win, especially in the ACC — one of the toughest, if not the toughest, conferences in men’s college tennis.
In fact, NC State will face off against one of those teams in the ITA Kick-Off Weekend on Saturday, Jan. 27. The Pack is set to travel to Durham to take on its rival, No. 8 Duke. First serve against the Blue Devils is set for 12:30 p.m.
