UNC women’s tennis avenges only loss of season, beats rival NC State for national title
UNC’s Carson Tanguilig and Elizabeth Scotty partnered to play the only quick doubles match of the three-match slate at the NCAA women’s national championships Saturday, so it was only fitting that they played two of the longest singles matches of the evening, as well.
Tanguilig and Scotty won all three of those matches, the singles matches just a few minutes apart, to pace the Tar Heels to a 4-1 win over rival N.C. State to earn a national title, UNC’s first since it became a sanctioned event in 1982.
Scotty won in two grueling sets, 7-6, 6-3, over N.C. State’s Abigail Rencheli in nearly the same amount of time as Tanguilig’s three-set, 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 win over Ameilia Rajecki. The latter was officially the winning point.
“It’s so surreal, honestly, I don’t think that I believed that I won the match when I did,” Tanguilig said, “and I don’t remember that match point at all. So when people are sending me videos. I don’t remember that at all. But it’s just like I can’t describe it.”
Fiona Crawley got the Heels on the board in singles and gave UNC a 2-1 lead after the Heels earned the doubles point, with a straight sets win over Alana Smith, 6-2, 7-6.
UNC, which won its fourth consecutive ITA Indoor National Championship this year, is the second North Carolina school to win a Division I title in women’s tennis, joining Duke in 2009. Stanford, which the Wolfpack defeated in the semifinal round, holds the record with 20 titles.
“When I first came to Carolina, my dream was to be a part of the National Championship club,” UNC head coach Brian Kalbas said. “We won seven indoor titles and we’ve never won this one. It just was very elusive. For it to be this year with this team means the world for me personally, because I know we’ve had great teams in the past and every team every year kind of led to this year.”
The only blemish on the Tar Heels’ record this season was a loss to the Wolfpack in the ACC Championship, that after a decisive shutout win in the regular season.
“We have a lot of respect and admiration for NC State and them beating us at the ACCs,” Kalbas said. “They made us better. We had to kind of look inward and figure out some things because we hadn’t lost in … For us to, kind of, have a little bit more of a growth mentality and look at some different things and the openness of this team to do that was special.”
Diana Shnaider gave the Wolfpack its lone point of the match at No. 1 singles, sweeping Reese Brantmeier in straight sets, 6-3, 6-4. The win was the second of the day for Schnaider, who was part of the Pack’s lone doubles match win earlier in the contest.
Two singles matches went unfinished once UNC won the clinching point. At No. 5 singles, N.C. State’s Sophie Abrams and UNC’s Reilly Tran had split sets and were tied 1-1 in the third. At No. 6 singles, N.C. State’s Gina Dittmann and UNC’s Anika Yarlagadda split sets, and Dittmann was ahead 3-2 in the third.
Tar Heels double up
UNC earned the first point of the day in a contentious doubles battle. The Tar Heels took the first doubles match when Scotty and Tanguilig dispatched Nell Miller and Rajecki, 6-1.
The other two doubles matches were far closer, which was expected. N.C. State pulled even with the Tar Heels with a win at No. 1 doubles when Shnaider and Smith edged Crawley and Abbey Forbes, 6-4.
In the deciding doubles match, Reese Brantmeier and Tran served out the match over Abrams and Rencheli, giving the Heels the important 1-0 advantage in the overall match.
“You know, we were struggling in doubles before yesterday and so for us to win the doubles point against probably arguably the best team in the country in doubles; they have a system that they call and they do it really well,” Kalbas said.
UNC, NC State sweep semifinals
Wolfpack stops Stanford
If there’s one program that epitomizes women’s tennis success, it’s Stanford, which owns 20 NCAA titles in 41 contested national championships. To reach Saturday’s final, that was the dragon the Wolfpack had to slay.
And slay it, it did.
In the Wolfpack’s semifinal win over the Cardinal, the doubles point turned out to be a precursor of the rest of the afternoon.
After the teams split the first two doubles matches, Abrams and Rencheli snagged the doubles point for N.C. State to get the match rolling in the right direction.
Shnaider, who alongside Smith earned a doubles win for the Pack, also won her singles match, taking down Alexandra Yepifanova 6-1, 6-0 for a 2-0 team lead. Dittman toppled Sara Choy in the second single match, and Smith punctuated the team sweep with a 7-5, 7-5 nail-biting victory over Connie Ma.
“This was the goal,” N.C. State head coach Simon Earnshaw said after the match. “I think we felt that we had our best opportunity that we’ve had, and that was even earlier in the season when we didn’t make the national indoors. It was just really a question of us being able to put it all together. Realistically, it’s the result of that. For a 4-0 match, that was darn tough, that’s for sure.”
Tar Heels tame Georgia
It’s been a while — outdoors, at least — but the top-ranked Tar Heels made it back to the national title match in women’s tennis for the first time since 2014 on Friday with a decisive 4-0 sweep of No. 4 Georgia.
For the first time since the regional final, UNC earned the doubles point to kick off the match against the Bulldogs. Crawley and Forbes won 6-1 in their doubles matchup, and Tanguilig and Scotty secured the doubles point after they won moments later by a 6-2 count.
In singles play, Crawley powered past Dasha Vidmanova, 6-1, 6-2, to get the Tar Heels rolling. Brantmeier notched her third-straight ranked victory of the postseason, earning a 6-2, 6-4 decision over Lea Ma to extend the UNC lead to 3-0.
Scotty clinched the match for North Carolina, winning 6-4, 6-4 over Anastasiia Lopata.
“It’s tough to get to the finals,” UNC head coach Brian Kalbas said. “We got here in 2014 and we’ve had a lot of really good teams, and this is truly a special team. So to get to the finals with this team is just, you know, just remarkable, special, incredible, so many adjectives, but this team is very close. They’re connected.”
This story was originally published May 20, 2023 at 9:40 PM.
