UNC men’s tennis crushed by Blue Devils

CARY — On the strength of three tiebreaker wins, the North Carolina men’s tennis team began its ACC tournament run Friday with a 4-1 victory against Wake Forest.

That run would come to an end the very next day.

Squaring off against No. 13 Duke on Saturday, the No. 15 Tar Heels (15-7, 10-3 ACC) couldn’t recover from a doubles loss, dropping three matches in singles and falling 4-0.

“I mean, that’s tennis — one day you win, one day you lose,” sophomore Jose Hernandez said. “But it’s nothing to get our head down about … I still believe in my team.”

Hernandez, who entered the tournament ranked No. 22 in the nation, more than held his own against No. 7 Henrique Cunha of Duke. Hernandez won the first set 6-4 and was poised to win the second until Cunha injured his ankle while trying to play a ball to his right.

By that point, though, Duke was already well on its way toward clinching the win.

“We came out flat,” UNC coach Sam Paul said. “Duke played well. There’s no doubt about that. They’ve got a very good team, so they deserved to win today.”

The Tar Heels’ hopes turned sour after juniors Cameron Ahari and Brennan Boyajian failed to pick up a win in the doubles-deciding tiebreaker. For Paul, that signaled a significant momentum shift.

“Obviously, we could’ve gotten the doubles point,” Paul said. “We were a couple of points away from that, and I think that swung the match a little bit. It took a lot of our guys out emotionally.”

On Friday the doubles point wasn’t an issue, as the Tar Heels easily won two of the three matches against Wake Forest with scores of 8-5 and 8-2.

The singles matches proved slightly more challenging, with all three Tar Heel wins involving tiebreakers in the second set. Senior Stefan Hardy in particular was faced with the steep challenge of matching up against Iain Atkinson — against whom he has had little luck in his career.

Hardy fared better this time, taking the first set easily at 6-3. He then finished off Atkinson in the tiebreaker 7-1 to clinch the win for the Tar Heels.

“I’ve faced him three or four times, but I’ve never beaten him,” Hardy said on Friday. “And so it’s very sweet to take home a win, get a little revenge and get to advance to the next round.”

Unfortunately for Hardy and the Tar Heels, neither he nor the team had the same luck against Duke. The senior dropped both of his sets to Chris Mengel — 6-2, 6-1 — and the team as a whole only managed to win two singles sets combined.

The results Sunday surely weren’t up to par with what the team had envisioned, and there was an air of disappointment after the match.

Still, Paul emphasized moving on and focusing on the upcoming NCAA tournament, which begins in May.

“Sometimes you just want something too much in life,” Paul said. “And that’s what happened today.”

Contact the Sports Editor at sports@dailytarheel.com.