It was a tale of two streaks that highlighted Friday’s action between the No. 6 North Carolina men’s tennis team and the No.7 Virginia Cavaliers.
For Virginia (11-2, 3-0 ACC), an ACC regular season winning streak that spanned more than seven years was on the line. On the other side, North Carolina’s Brayden Schnur looked to push his singles record to 14-0.
Some spirited play in doubles competition foreshadowed a possible epic match between the two powerhouses, but at the end of the day Schnur and North Carolina (15-3, 2-1 ACC) found themselves on the wrong end of both streaks, falling handily to the defending national champions 7-0.
A raucous crowd highlighted the doubles action between the two teams, as hundreds of fans packed the stands at Cone-Kenfield Tennis Center to cheer on North Carolina’s three doubles pairs.
The Tar Heels’ Nelson Vick joined in, letting out a, 'Come on Heels,' every time he and junior Oystein Steiro earned a point. But despite the energy from both Vick and the fans, the pair couldn’t pull out a victory, falling 8-5.
After a win by Schnur and Brett Clark on court one tied the doubles at one apiece, all of the crowd focused on the freshmen tandem of Jack Murray and Ronnie Schneider, who were up 7-6 against Thai-Son Kwiatkowski and Justin Shane of Virginia. The match eventually went into a tie-breaker, which Murray and Schneider dropped 7-4.
Schneider commended the fans for their support during their doubles match, saying that the crowd was by far the best it had been all season.
“Unfortunately we couldn’t capitalize on it, but I thought the crowd was awesome,” Schneider said.
“That’s what college tennis and being a part of the North Carolina community is all about.”