This past weekend was a busy one in ACC men’s tennis with several results that raised eyebrows around the college tennis world. But the ACC weekend very clearly belonged to one team.
Team of the Weekend: Florida State
It had already been a very good season for the Florida State Seminoles prior to this past weekend but the entire college tennis world was put on notice to “Fear the Spear” on Sunday as the Noles pulled off the stunning 4-3 upset of previously undefeated #1 Wake Forest. Before the match on Sunday, there was chatter that maybe this could be a spot for a big FSU win at home in Tallahassee, especially since Wake Forest did not look all that convincing vs Miami on Friday. But the chances of an upset were made slim when the Deacs pulled out a tight doubles point as Mansouri/Dempster defeated Dougaz/Iradukunda 7-6(3) in the deciding doubles line. The Seminoles would now have to somehow find a way to win 4 singles courts… And FSU was every bit up for the challenge. As Coach Dwayne Hultquist put it “The biggest thing is we didn’t give up. We were very competitive the whole way through the match. We could have won the doubles point but lost the tiebreaker. Aziz could have won the 1st set but didn’t. We could have won the 1st set at Chase’s court but didn’t. It was a match where we never gave up. For Guy and Chase to be down a set and come back and win showed a lot of heart and that we will never give up”.
FSU had several close moments early in the match where they could have folded and decided that their effort was enough but they never did, they were not going to finish the match without a team victory. The key moment in the match was Guy Iradukunda winning the 2nd set tiebreak over Borna Gojo to spark the comeback. His 2-6 7-6(3) 6-2 proved to be the turning point court for FSU. Lucas Pouillan followed Iradukunda’s huge win with a massive 3 set 6-4 5-7 6-3 victory of his own over Skander Mansouri. The upset was confirmed when Chase Wood rallied to beat Julian Zlobinksy 6-7(3) 6-4 6-4 on court 6. Wood led the 3rd set 4-1, before Zlobinsky rallied to make it 4-5. Zlobinsky began to cramp in the final game and Wood was able to finish it off to secure the upset win in Tallahassee.
Florida State’s huge win over Wake Forest followed what was already a very solid win on Friday over #23 NC State. In the Friday ACC preview I wrote that I anticipated FSU/NC State would go down to the wire with it likely going 4-3 the way of the Seminoles. But FSU did not feel like sweating that much on Friday and took care of the Wolfpack with relative ease in a straightforward 4-0 win. The 4-0 beatdown if NC State followed by the dramatic upset over the #1 team in the nation makes FSU easily the team of the weekend in the ACC and will launch them into the top 10 in the new ITA rankings. 2018 has all the makings of being the best FSU season in a very long time.
Other Positive Weekends
Louisville: The Cardinals had a solid ACC weekend at home with two wins over Clemson and Georgia Tech. In both contests they took the doubles point and ran out with three fairly quick singles victories to secure a win (the GT match was played out while the Clemson match was not). These were two important steps toward the NCAA tournament for Louisville, who will also get more benefit from their win over Virginia as the Cavaliers ranking rises in the coming weeks.
Virginia: Virginia continued their in-form play over the weekend with a comprehensive 6-1 beating of Georgia Tech followed by a 4-2 win over Clemson in which they rallied after dropping a close doubles point. Carl Soderlund has now won 6 in a row at #1 for Virginia, 3 over ranked players and 5 of the 6 wins being in straight sets. His resurgence in form has been key to the Wahoo’s recent winning streak.
Miami: The Hurricanes got a much needed positive weekend, playing in two epic matches, which outside of the FSU win, were the two best games of the weekend anywhere in the country. Miami has show flashes of improvement in moments this season but nothing indicated that they would be a major scare for #1 Wake Forest on Friday. But provide a major scare for the Deacs they certainly did. After taking the doubles point, Miami got big singles wins from Bojan Jankulovski at #4 and from Adria Soriano Barrera at #2. After Wake Forest won straight set matches at 1,5 and 6, the match would come down to court 3 where Bar Botzer of Wake was able to outlast Dane Dunlap 7-5 4-6 6-4 and deny Miami a massive upset win.
Despite the heartbreak, there were plenty of positives for Miami to take out of challenging the #1 team in the nation to the absolute wire. But would the positives translate to Sunday’s match vs #23 NC State? The answer proved to be a resounding yes. Despite dropping the doubles point to the Wolfpack, the Canes stormed back in singles to upend NC State and collect a big ranked win. The player of the weekend for Miami was Adria Soriano Barrera who beat both #30 Skander Mansouri and #24 Alexis Galarneau in straight sets but the hero of Sunday’s win was Bojan Jankulovski who rallied to beat Georgiy Malyshev 1-6 6-2 7-6(5) while fighting off cramps in the final set tiebreak and he added “it was worth it, I’d say” about the cramps setting in as his teammates mobbed him following the clutch win.
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