The No. 13 North Carolina men’s tennis team opened its 2022 dual match season by sweeping Bucknell, 7-0, at the Cone-Kenfield Tennis Center on Sunday afternoon.
What happened?
The Tar Heels opened up with a strong performance in doubles, with both teams winning their matches, 6-2. The ITA Collegiate No. 20 doubles pair of UNC sophomore Logan Zapp and first-year Casey Kania defeated Bucknell’s Tim Zelikovsky and Carlos Carvalho. Senior Henry Lieberman and sophomore Peter Murphy ousted Bucknell’s Ink Chen and Nicholas Grunig.
The dominance continued into singles play, with the Tar Heels winning all of their respective matches and not dropping a single set. Senior Brian Cernoch, ranked 60th in ITA Collegiate singles, torched both his sets 6-0 against Bucknell’s Nick Mueller. Junior Mark Dillon cruised to a win against Carvalho, winning in straight sets and only dropping one game.
Murphy decisively bested Grunig 6-1 and 6-2 to notch UNC’s fourth point in the match’s best of seven. Moments later, Zapp defeated Zelikovsky in straight sets, including a 6-0 second set.
Senior Mac Kiger and Lieberman both eked out a win in their second games, with Kiger beating Michael Owen 7-5 and Lieberman having to play a tiebreaker set against Chen. Lieberman took set one 6-3, but found himself trailing Chen by two games in the second set. Lieberman battled back to tie the set at 6-6, ultimately winning the tiebreaker set 9-7.
Who stood out?
Both doubles teams showed promise as they comfortably won their respective matches. Although Kiger and Lieberman did not win their matches as handily as Cernoch, Dillon, Murphy and Zapp, they demonstrated their ability to handle pressure in deuce and tiebreaker sets.
