The North Carolina women’s tennis team dominated at the ITA Carolina Regional Championships, sweeping the singles and doubles championships.
What happened?
On Thursday, the Tar Heels traveled to Winston-Salem for the ITA Regional Championships. North Carolina brought eight single competitors and five doubles teams to the event at Wake Forest Tennis Center.
This was the first ITA Regional since 2019 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the UNC women rose to the challenge the event presented. On day two, the Tar Heels’ advanced four singles players as well as four doubles teams to the quarterfinals.
On Saturday, three UNC singles players advanced even further to the semifinals. These North Carolina players were top-seeded sophomore Fiona Crawley, No. 2 senior Cameron Morra and No. 4 first-year Carson Tanguilig.
The same day resulted in two Tar Heel doubles teams advancing to the finals. One of these teams consisted of Morra and Tanguilig, while the other was made up of Crawley and junior Elizabeth Scotty.
Both of these doubles teams won their respective main draw doubles finals on Sunday. North Carolina faced Duke in both matchups, and top-seeded doubles team Morra and Tanguilig crushed the eighth seed, 6-0, 6-2. Crawley and Scotty were the fourth seed and defeated the third seed, 7-5, 6-2. Along with their doubles wins, Morra and Crawley also won their singles matches to advance to Monday’s championships.
In the singles championship matchups on Monday, Morra faced off against Jaeda Daniel of N.C. State. The intense main draw one final took nearly three hours and a full three sets.
Despite losing the first set, Morra was able to capture both of the last two sets to become the champion. Crawley’s main draw two final was less of a nail-biter, with a 6-4, 6-4 win against No. 2 seed Ayana Akli of South Carolina.