Hayley Carter's dominant singles win boosts hardworking UNC women's tennis team in win over Clemson

Hayley Carter sat down on the bench with a huff, wiping the towel across the back of her neck. She looked up to the scoreboard — 6-0, 5-0 — and put her head back down.

Head coach Brian Kalbas frantically made his way toward the senior. He became animated while talking, jumping and showing her how to go about the next serve, the last serve.

She nodded with a faint smile, stepping out onto the court for the last round.

Serve. Hit. Hit. Miss. 6-0, 6-0 in Carter’s favor — her 151st career singles win. The dominant victory guided the No. 3 North Carolina women’s tennis team to a 6-1 win over Clemson on Friday.

“It’s honestly pretty crazy,” Carter said of her success. “It’s surreal.”

Following the win over Clemson and a subsequent singles win in UNC’s 7-0 victory over Boston College, Carter is 20 singles wins ahead of UNC’s previous record (131).

“I looked at the numbers,” Carter said. “And one way to leave a legacy is to leave history.”

The Tar Heels (14-1, 3-0 ACC) have a record of 31 consecutive ACC regular season wins, and this game marked the third straight over the Tigers (3-7, 0-3 ACC).

The team has some of the highest ranking players in the nation. Five out of six of the singles players that competed Friday night are ranked, and two of those players fall in the top five — No. 3 Carter and No. 4 Sara Daavettila.

“This is the hardest working team I’ve had,” Kalbas said. “They continue to work. They continue to come to extra practices. They push each other.”

The Tar Heels push each other in practice, but they make sure to have fun at the same time.

“For us, that takes the pressure off of having a target on our backs and being the top ranked team in the ACC,” sophomore Jessie Aney said.

The program has only grown stronger. Carter, the 2016 ACC Player of the Year and an ITA All-America selection last season, strives to use the last 14 games before the ACC Championship and NCAA regionals to extend her singles wins record.

But when Carter talks about her hopes and dreams, she focuses on how the future of the tennis team will progress — even after she graduates.

“We have three incredible freshmen,” Carter said. “So I think they’re just going to learn and learn this year. Hopefully by the end of the year, we’ll be even stronger and better. But, moving forward, obviously, I’m going to miss it incredibly ...”

“The program is on the rise. We have so many amazing underclassmen ... and I’m excited for what’s to come, even cheering on as an alum.”

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