NC State women's tennis concludes its historic season after recording its deepest postseason run in program history.
Regular Season:The team began its schedule with a preseason ranking of third in the country, setting a new mark for the highest preseason ranking in program history. Since Feb. 26, 2019, the national team ranking has remained within the top-16.
Throughout the regular season from January 21st to April 16th, the team participated in 24 matches. Just four of those resulted in losses, tying the number of regular season losses that have been recorded in the past two years (2021 and 2022).
Head coach,
Simon Earnshaw, purposefuly slated a demanding schedule to prepare for the back half of the season. The Pack claimed 21 wins over ranked opponents, with 14 of those coming from the top 25 in the nation.
Bringing excitement early in the season, a win over No. 2 Ohio State recorded the new highest ranked win for the program, which ended up being broken again during the ACC Tournament.
In just the fourth game of the season, Coach Earnshaw earned his 900th career win with a 6-1 win over No. 15 Oklahoma and was honored at the game against No. 22 Tennessee on Feb. 5th.
In the same match against the Sooners,
Alana Smith picked up her 100th career doubles wins. Later on in the season, on her senior day, she also earned her 100th career singles win, making her just the second player in program history to reach 100 wins in each category.
ACC Tournament:The strength of the schedule from the regular season proved to support the team's dominance as they powered through all three matches of the ACC Tournament. In those three games, only one point was dropped to opponents as they defeated No. 25 Florida State 4-0, No. 20 Georgia Tech 5-0, and No. 1 North Carolina 4-1.
In a local triangle thriller, NC State faced North Carolina in the championship match. A few weeks prior, the Tarheels secured a 7-0 authority over the Wolfpack but it was the red-and-white who walked away with their first-ever ACC Championship. For the first time in 24 years, the Tar Heel reign was broken in the series.
Diana Shnaider also defeated the No. 1 player in the country (Fiona Crawley) on court one in straight sets.
NCAA Tournament:To start off the tournament, the Pack hosted the first two rounds of the tournament for the fourth season in a row, beginning in 2019. Visiting teams included Charlotte, Kansas, and South Carolina State.
In the first round of 64, NC State defeated South Carolina State 4-0 to play No. 25 Kansas the following day in the second round and also post the same score over the Jayhawks. Both
wins secured a super regional hosting for the team for the second year in a row.
The following weekend the Wolfpack hosted No. 18 Auburn, a 4-0 decision resulted in the team securing their trip to Orlando, Fla. for the Elite Eight match against No. 12 Iowa State.
After a late night nailbiter finish, the red-and-white came out on top over the Cyclones to move on to the Final Four where they met Stanford for the first time in program history.
Another 4-0 score secured the program's first-ever appearance in the NCAA Championship match. For the third time in a season, the Wolfpack and Tar Heels met yet again to battle it out. After a back and forth fight, No. 1 North Carolina emerged victorious with the trophy.
Nell Miller (fifth year),
Amelia Rajecki (junior),
Diana Shnaider (freshman), and
Alana Smith (graduate) qualified for the singles and doubles tournament action after the completion of the team event. All four picked up All-America honors, Miller in doubles, and Rajecki, Shnaider, and Smith in both doubles
and singles.
Shnaider did not compete in either singles or doubles as she was preparing for her upcoming time at Roland Garros. A win in the first round designated her as the first college tennis player since 1983 to go directly from the NCAA Tennis Championships to Roland Garros.
Smith, a 9-16 seed, lost 6-3, 6-4 in the first round of 64 in singles to Tatsiana Sasnouskaya of Old Dominion.
Miller and Rajecki were placed as a 5-8 seed and defeated Angelica Blake and Alexis Blokhina of Stanford with a 6-4, 6-1 score in the first round of 32. In the round of 16, the pair fell in two sets with double tiebreakers (7-6(4), 7-6 (7) to Julia Adams and Melodie Collard of Virginia.
In the first round of 64, Rajecki defeated Sarah Hamner of South Carolina in three sets with a 7-6 (1), 3-6, 6-1 decision. The round of 16 only took two sets for a victory when she took out Daria Frayman of Princeton (6-3, 6-4).
Rajecki went on to advance to the Singles Semifinal match where she became the first player in program history to progress that far. Her quarterfinal win tallied her 40th singles of the season, shattering the record for the most single-season wins in singles which was previously set at 33 in 2011.
https://gopack.com/news/2023/5/29/womens-tennis-wolfpack-womens-tennis-concludes-historic-2023-dual-match-season.aspx
