Easter weekend brought long-awaited redemption for the No. 8 North Carolina women’s tennis team in its convincing 4-0 win against No. 31 Florida State and a close, emotional upset in a 4-3 victory against No. 7 Miami.
Against FSU, the Tar Heels were able to carry the energy from sweeping the doubles matches into some tough singles matches.
Tessa Lyons and Lauren McHale were both matched against girls that had taken them down at least once last year, but this year, they wanted a different outcome.
“I played that girl last year twice, so I knew what to expect, but I really wanted it a lot, I think, just because of last year,” Lyons said.
Despite a long and drawn-out match — with one of the games lasting more than 20 minutes — Lyons came out with a win in straight sets, 6-3, 6-3.
McHale also emerged victorious in her match against Ruth Seaborne, who beat McHale last year and was forced to retire this time due to injury after McHale went up 4-1 in the second set.
After Lyons’ victory put the Tar Heels up 4-0, the match was called and the remaining three singles matches, which were going into third sets, remained unfinished.
Coach Brian Kalbas said the decision to stop when either of the teams got to four points was one the two teams had reached before the start of the match.
“I was not opposed to it because we’ve played a lot of tennis so far this year, and if we could save ourselves another hour going into tomorrow, it can only help us,” he said.