The North Carolina men’s tennis team faced Virginia Tech on Sunday, at the Cone-Kenfield Tennis Center, in an admitted revenge game for the team.
The Hokies (12-5, 4-3 ACC) won the matchup a year ago, and returned all of their players this season. The Tar Heels (20-1, 5-1 ACC) were looking to show they have improved since then.
After a 5-2 win, the Tar Heels claimed their revenge.
The large crowd was into the match early, as the doubles point came down to the play of senior Brett Clark and sophomore Robert Kelly.
After being up 5-1, the duo was facing a tough comeback by the No. 7 ranked doubles team of seniors Andreas Bjerrehus and Joao Monteiro, who pulled the score to 5-4. Clark and Kelly rallied to serve out the match 6-4.
The Tar Heels added to their lead with straight-set wins for first-year Blain Boyden and Kelly, leaving the team needing only one victory on the remaining four courts to clinch a momentum-building victory heading into two tough matches against Virginia and Wake Forest the following weekend.
“We definitely didn’t want to let down, because that’s obviously a big weekend coming and we didn’t want to overlook this team, because we knew how good they were,” said Clark.
Junior Jack Murray would step up to clinch the victory for his team with 6-4 victories in both sets. Shortly after, first-year Anu Kodali dropped a hard-fought second set, to give Virginia Tech its first point of the day.
Even though Clark lost his tiebreaker, junior Ronnie Schneider would go on to win his match and avenge his loss to Bjerrehus a season ago.