Illinois men’s tennis faced No. 16 North Carolina and No. 17 Wake Forest this weekend in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
This weekend was a way to test the players’ grit in a tough road match with the ITA National Indoor Championship on the line. Coming off of a heartbreaking 4-3 loss against No. 10 Kentucky the previous week, head coach Brad Dancer’s team has been waiting to prove themselves truly.
Playing the Tar Heels at home to start the ITA Kickoff Weekend, the Illini doubles continued showing dominance. Junior Mathis Debru and sophomore Kenta Miyoshi handily defeated Peter Murphy and Patrick Schoen. The doubles dream team with senior Hunter Heck and junior Karlis Ozolins followed suit and took down Will Jansen and Karl Poling, clinching the doubles point.
North Carolina fought back, winning the first three singles matches. No. 55 Ozolins was taken down in straight sets by Jansen. Debru also lost in straight sets to No. 83 Will Peters. Miyoshi took the first set to the tiebreaker but eventually went down to Benjamin Kittay.
With the group now facing a 1-3 deficit and a single loss away from losing to North Carolina, No. 46 Heck stopped the momentum. He took down No. 50 Poling and senior Alex Petrov defeated Schoen.
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In an instant, Illinois rallied to make it 3-3 and all eyes turned to court five where junior William Mroz clinched the victory with a win over Phillip Jordan. Even though he lost the first set in the tiebreaker, he was able to come from behind and make Illinois victorious.
On Sunday, Illinois went against Wake Forest in the championship round weekend. Despite their strong momentum and a win already under the belt, the Illini fell 1-4 to the Demon Deacons. While Heck and Ozolins won their doubles match, Wake Forest clinched the doubles point.
For singles, Ozolins showed up once again and took down No. 7 Filippo Moroni to even the count. However, Wake Forest turned on the burners and won the next three matches, clinching the win.
“Big credit to Wake Forest, they have a great team and brought the energy today,” Dancer said. “We put a ton of pressure on them in doubles and they didn’t blink, especially in the three-hole. In singles, they played well enough at certain spots to shift some of that pressure to us.”
The Illinois men’s tennis schedule continues in intense fashion next weekend as the team hosts No. 8 Duke on Friday before getting a rematch with North Carolina on Saturday.
