NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Trailing 2-0, Vanderbilt’s 28th-ranked men’s tennis team won four consecutive singles matches to defeat No. 43 N.C. State, 4-3, on Sunday at the Currey Tennis Center.
The win was Vanderbilt’s first of the season at home and moved the Commodores to 2-2 overall, while N.C. State fell to 4-4. Dating back to last season, Vanderbilt’s last seven wins, including both this year, have been by the score of 4-3.
“I’m happy with the way we came back today, but the one thing I’m not worried with about this team is whether they are going to keep at it,” Head Coach Ian Duvenhage said. “They don’t know the word quit and they haven’t quit on me since I’ve been here, so I didn’t expect that to happen today.”
Vanderbilt fell behind the Wolfpack 2-0 after losing the doubles point and No. 1 singles mach, but the Commodores kept battling. Wins by Vijay Paul in the No. 3 position and Adam Baker in the No. 4 position and Charlie Jones in the No. 5 position gave Vanderbilt its first lead.
With Vanderbilt needing just one win in the final two matches, sophomore Bryant Salcedo came through in the No. 2 position. It took three sets, but Salcedo defeated N.C. State’s Christian Welke, 6-4, 5-7, 6-3, to secure the overall match.
Salcedo’s win completed a weekend of tennis at Vanderbilt that saw the Commodores lose, 4-3, to No. 14 Michigan Friday and N.C. State defeat Michigan, 4-3, on Saturday.
“Our challenge is we have to keep going for knockdown punches,” Duvenhage said. “We are like a boxer who hurts his opponent and then doesn’t finish him off. When you put good athletes and competitors on the canvas and you let them get back up, they are going to come back and beat you, so I’m really happy with what Vijay (Paul) and Bryant (Salcedo) did today. Once they got them down, they finished the job.”
N.C. State was able snatch the doubles point from the Commodores, after it looked like they had the doubles point under control midway through the matches. However, N.C. State rallied to win the final two matches in tiebreakers.
Vanderbilt took an early advantage in doubles when Vanderbilt’s 32nd-ranked tandem of Adam Baker and Alex Zotov earned an 8-6 win over N.C. State’s duo of Julian Sullivan and Christian Welte in the No. 1 position. With the win, the duo moved to 3-0 in dual play this spring.
Following the win by Baker and Zotov, the attention turned to the No. 3 position, where Vanderbilt’s duo of Charlie Jones and Alex DiValerio was trying to hold off N.C. State’s tandem of Rob Lowe and Frideric Prandecki after building a 7-4 lead in the match.
Jones and DiValerio were hoping to avoid a second straight collapse after watching their 6-3 lead evaporate against Michigan on Friday. Unfortunately, the freshman duo was unable to hold on again as Lowe and Prandecki evened the doubles match at one with a 9-8 (9-7) win.
With the doubles point deadlocked, the attention shifted to the match in the No. 2 position, where Vanderbilt’s Nick Cromydas and Bryant Salcedo were facing N.C. State’s team of Jay Weinacker and Jaime Pulgar. Cromydas and Salcedo were down 6-3 and 7-5 in the match, but rallied to force a tiebreaker. Weinacker and Pulgar were able to clinch the doubles point with a 9-8 (7-5) win.
In singles play, Paul began Vanderbilt’s scoring run by defeating N.C. State’s Jaime Pulgar, 6-2, 7-6 (7-4), in the No. 3 position.
Baker evened the match at two after he rallied from a set down to top N.C. State’s Julian Sullivan, 4-6, 6-2, 7-6 (7-4), in the No. 4 spot.
Jones moved his dual match record to 3-1 when he topped the Wolfpack’s David Chermak, 6-7 (7-5), 6-1, 6-3, in the No. 5 position.
Vanderbilt will continue its home stand Friday when Memphis visits the Currey Tennis Center for a 2 p.m. match. The Commodores will then play Middle Tennessee State at 12 p.m. Saturday.
