After wining in the opening round of the ACC Championship, the No. 54 men’s tennis team suffered a close loss to No. 25 Miami in the quarterfinals Friday. N.C. State lost 3-4 to the Hurricanes, bringing its record to 10-15 on the season. The Wolfpack has not made it past the quarterfinal round in the ACC Championship since the 80s when it placed third.
“In reality, we had every opportunity to win this match today,” coach Jon Choboy said. “Miami did a good job elevating the game.”
Jay Weinacker and Jamie Pulgar finished first on the doubles court defeating Miami 8-2. This win was the duo’s 18th of the season, becoming the second doubles team in Wolfpack history with that many wins in a single season. The win also marked Weinacker’s 87th career doubles victory, breaking the school record.
As No. 74 Christian Welte and Julian Sullivan fell 8-2 to the Canes, the doubles point came down to the number three doubles in a tight contest. Rob Lowe and David Chermak dropped the point 8-5.
“At the end of the day there’s not a large margin for error when you lose the doubles point,” Choboy said. “We had to have it.”
On the singles court, Pulgar finished first, defeated Christian Blocker 6-2, 6-0, while Chermak lost to Ignacio Taboada 6-1, 6-3. Playing number two, Welte fought from behind to win in straight sets 7-5, 6-4.
“I finished doubles pretty early, so it was about 40 minutes before my single match,” Welte said. “I got down pretty early, down 5-1. I was just trying to break the groove and I ending up breaking [David Rosenfeld] and held my serve, and I starting going crazy. I knew we needed my match to make it close.”
After Welte’s match, Derek Stephens walked away with a victory on number three, defeating No. 113 Carl Sundberg 6-2, 6-3. Stephens’ win evened the match score to three all, as the match came down to Weinacker playing one and Sullivan playing five as they both split sets with Miami.
No. 37 Weinacker ended up losing to No. 13 Daniel Vallverdu 6-3, 1-6, 6-3. Sullivan followed in similar fashion, losing to Keith Crowley 1-6, 6-4, 7-5.
“It was a tough one,” Welte said. “To lose 4-3, this hurts a lot. We haven’t really had a loss that burns as much as this one. We fought really hard, and it was a complete team effort so there’s not much we could do about it — [we] left it all on the court.”
The Pack had a difficult season, coming into the tournament after seven straight losses, and a record of 9-14. According to Pulgar, the loss on Friday was expected after such a disappointing season.
“The team did pretty well,” Pulgar said. “But our tournament [finish] wasn’t because of this weekend — it was because of during the season we didn’t do our job in our matches.”
The Wolfpack will now have to wait to see if it will be selected to play in the NCAA tournament, held May 9, as well as if any players will be selected for the individual championships.
“You never know,” Welte said. “We are a bubble team for the NCAA’s, so we’re going to ride this and see what happens.”
