UNC women's tennis sees red in win over Cardinal, advances to national championship

The North Carolina women’s tennis team may be young, but it was its youth that came through in the clutch to defeat Stanford University, the defending national champion, 4-3 Monday at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex. The win sent the team to its first national championship game.

Junior Caroline Price and sophomore Whitney Kay began the day gliding through their doubles match without any problems, winning 8-2.

Freshmen Jamie Loeb and Hayley Carter found themselves down 5-2. With the doubles point up for grabs after sophomore Ashley Dai and senior Tessa Lyons lost on court No. 3, Loeb and Carter prevented Stanford from winning another game to take the match 8-5 and provide the Tar Heels with an early 1-0 lead.

Carter said the win gave her momentum going into her singles match.

“For how big of a doubles match it was, it was the best doubles match I’ve played all year,” Carter said. “And so I had a lot of confidence going into singles.”

Carter finished her singles match quickly — winning straight sets 6-2 and 6-1 to put UNC up 2-0.

But the Cardinals began to battle back.

Stanford’s Taylor Davidson defeated Kay to cut UNC’s lead to 2-1. And after Price upended No. 21 Carol Zhao 6-4, 6-4, the Cardinal responded with two quick wins to tie it up at 3-3.

Then it came down to one match — a top-five showdown between Loeb and Kristie Ahn with a trip to the national championship on the line.

Loeb battled back in the first set to tie the score at 5-5. But after gaining a 6-5 lead, Loeb dropped the next game and fell 7-6 after losing the tiebreaker. It was the first singles set Loeb lost since March 9.

But despite Loeb dropping the first set, Carter didn’t have any worries about the outcome of her teammate’s match.

“It was the least nerve-wracking deciding match of all time,” Carter said. “She plays amazing and I had so much confidence in her to close it out for us.”

Loeb proved earlier in the day that being down doesn’t stop her. In the second set, she shut out Ahn 6-0 and then finished off the third set with a 6-0 victory in the tiebreaker to seize the win for the Tar Heels.

Loeb said she expected the match-clinching point to come down to her before the match started.

“I just wanted to get that mentality that it’s possible that it might come down to me,” Loeb said. “But at the same time, I just focused on that it’s just another match and it doesn’t have any more on it.”

Loeb said she believed staying in the match mentally and physically is what helped her win the match.

“Physically, I was fired throughout the match, and I think that was a pretty big advantage on my part,” she said. “But I stayed pretty calm out there and didn’t really let the pressure get to me at all.”

Coach Brian Kalbas said it’s more than just Carter and Loeb’s skills that contribute to the success of the team.

“Their intensity, their effort, their ability to work hard every day kind of made the rest of our team that much better,” Kalbas said. “They have no egos. They’re so easy and fun to be around, and they don’t take anything for granted.”

And they won’t take Tuesday’s appearance in the national championship for granted either.

Contact the desk editor at sports@dailytarheel.com