UNC men’s tennis to host first two rounds of NCAA Tournament for sixth straight year

For the sixth year in a row, the North Carolina men’s tennis team will host the first and second round matches of the 2019 NCAA Men’s Tennis Tournament. 

In head coach Sam Paul’s 26 years of coaching the Tar Heels, this is the team’s 24th NCAA Tournament appearance. 

UNC (18-6) is the No. 9 seed, coming off of a 4-3 loss to UVA in the ACC Tournament semifinals. The home court advantage may help the Tar Heels be victorious against Navy (31-13) at 4 p.m. on Friday; North Carolina went 11-0 at home this season. 

Georgia (13-10) will take on Elon (21-4) first on Friday at 1 p.m. On Saturday at 4 p.m., the winner of that match will face off against the winner of UNC versus Navy at the Cone-Kenfield Tennis Center. 

After the NCAA team tournament, three Tar Heels will go on to compete in the singles and doubles NCAA tournament, which runs from May 20-25 at the USTA National Campus in Orlando, Fl. Junior William Blumberg and sophomore Benjamin Sigouin both qualified for singles, while senior Blaine Boyden and Blumberg earned an automatic bid for the doubles tournament.

UNC will head into the NCAA Tournament after making program history in ACC honors last week. North Carolina led the league with five Tar Heels earning all-conference honors. 

No. 18 Blumberg and No. 40 Sigouin were named to the first team and first-year Brian Cernoch was named to the second team, while Boyden and No. 119 junior Josh Peck were named to the third team. No other ACC team had more than three players honored this year. 

These are the first all-ACC honors for Cernoch and Peck. As for the first team honors, this is the third year for Blumberg and second year for Sigouin. This is Boyden’s second consecutive year on the all-ACC third team. 

When looking at the team’s stat sheet for the season so far, these honors come as no surprise and show the depth of UNC’s roster, which will be an asset for tournament play. 

Boyden leads the team in singles with an 18-3 record and Sigouin is a close second at 13-5. Cernoch comes in third with a record of 12-6 while Peck is in fourth at 11-7. Blumberg is near the bottom of the roster at 7-5; however, he sat out multiple matches near the end of the regular season due to an ankle injury. 

As for doubles, No. 16 Boyden and Blumberg have a record of 15-3 while Sigouin and Cernoch sit at 8-6. 

While these individual honors hold some value to the players, it speaks more to the program. With an eight-person roster, the team has had to learn how to step up in face of injury and illness, learning how to compete despite adversity. 

Starting Friday, the Tar Heels will have a chance to prove they are as dangerous of a team as the NCAA committee predicted. 

“We’re going to fight, and everybody knows that,” Boyden said. “Everyone understands how good we are, and we’re going to leave it on the line every single time we step on the court.”

@mwc13_3

@DTHSports | sports@dailytarheel.com