Women's tennis team falls in ACC final

CARY — Shinann Featherston tripped hard at the beginning of her singles match Sunday, perfectly mirroring UNC’s fall to Georgia Tech.

Even after hurting her wrist in the tumble, Featherston took care of her opponent, 6-0,6-2. But her success was not seen by the rest of the team.

On the next court over, Sophie Grabinski was also struggling in singles. She missed returns, faulted on serves and allowed unforced errors.

Many Tar Heel mistakes, coupled with rough weather conditions, lost UNC the ACC championship title to seventh seed Georgia Tech.

“It was some ugly tennis at times. I can’t put my finger on exactly why,” UNC coach Brian Kalbas said.

Coming into the ACC tournament, UNC was No. 1 with an unblemished 11-0 conference record.

Top-seeded UNC was poised for victory after defeating Florida State on Saturday afternoon in the ACC semifinals. But a hot Georgia Tech squad, fresh off its 4-2 upset over third-seeded Clemson, quickly stymied the Tar Heels en route to its stunning upset.

Sanaz Marand and Katrina Tsang jumped to an early 3-0 lead in doubles play. Then the momentum swung toward the Yellow Jackets, who won six consecutive games to leave Marand and Tsang trailing by three.

 “Momentum is such a big deal in college tennis,” Tsang said.

The duo battled back to win two games but could not reclaim the lead and lost 5-8.

Grabinski and Jelena Durisic also lost their doubles match 6-8.

“When you lose the doubles point, you can’t have a margin for error,” Kalbas said.

The point went to Georgia Tech, even though Featherston and Jocelyn Ffriend were first off the court, winning 8-2.

“We’ve been winning (this season), and we took that a little bit for granted,” Featherston said.

Gina Suarez-Malaguti landed a 6-1 victory in the first set of her singles match. With confidence she moved into the second set but faded, losing 3-6. The match moved to a third set and a chance at redemption for the freshman, but she lost 3-6 again.

As the last player on the court, and facing a 3-3 tie, the outcome of the ACC Championship rested with Marand. The senior leader lost her first set 1-6 but fought back for a 6-3 victory in the second.

This victory pushed the match into the third set, and even Kalbas said he was confident Marand could win.

“I have so much confidence in her to win any match against any player,” Kalbas said. “Four all and 40-15 (in the 3rd set). Yeah, I’m feeling this is her time.”

But Marand couldn’t pull through and lost 4-6.

“It was an empty feeling,” Kalbas said. “We’ve been on such a roll since spring break. … Today we just let them off the hook.”



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