University of North Carolina Athletics
2001 Tar Heel Men's Tennis Preview
January 2, 2001 | Men's Tennis
Jan. 2, 2001
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - With the loss of senior starters Tripp Phillips and Assaf Drori to graduation from an outstanding 2000 team, the North Carolina Tar Heels will be young but filled with potential as the team approaches the 2001 dual match season. Carolina head coach Sam Paul knows that replacing two players of that calibre will not be an easy task but the Tar Heels are not left devoid of talent as the 2001 season approaches.
"It was a thrill to work with last year's team," says the amiable Paul. "After the 1999 team worked so hard but ended up with a losing record it was satisfying to see many of those players get a chance to come back and play on such a successful team in the year 2000."
The 2000 Tar Heels were indeed one of the nation's best teams. Carolina ended the season with an 18-6 overall record. The Tar Heels were 6-2 in Atlantic Coast Conference dual matches, good for a second place finish. Carolina also advanced to the championship match of the ACC Tournament. After missing the NCAA Tournament field in 1999, Carolina returned to the 64-team bracket and was assigned to a regional at the University of Tennessee. The Tar Heels defeated Ball State University in the first round of the regional before falling to the host Volunteers in the regional championship match. Tennessee went on to finish as an NCAA semifinalist.
The Tar Heels will look to replace two All-Atlantic Coast Conference players like Phillips and Drori with a strong senior class led by David Cheatwood of Fayetteville, N.C. and Chad Riley of Sugar Land, Texas. Cheatwood is Carolina's only four-year senior in the program's ranks. Riley transferred to Carolina from TCU and fellow senior Aron Breziner is a fifth-year red-shirt senior who came to Carolina from Pepperdine. The homegrown Cheatwood was an outstanding player for the Tar Heels last year and anchored the team at the #3 singles spot by going 13-6 in matches at the flight. In fact the entire bottom end of the Carolina lineup last season was amazingly consistent in singles play as Carolina won close matches against nationally-ranked teams like South Carolina, Notre Dame, Virginia Commonwealth (the eventual NCAA Tournament runnerup) and Clemson twice.
Riley was Carolina's standout performer at the bottom end of the lineup. During dual match play he went 4-0 at #5 singles and 13-6 at #6 singles. His overall singles record last year was 26-13. In fact he even had more singles wins than Phillips, who was 25-6 overall and 20-4 at the #1 spot.
The Tar Heels went the international route in their recruiting last year and it worked out well. Both incoming players distinguished themselves as both good tennis players and good students. Marcio Petrone, now a junior, transferred to Carolina from Florida International. The Brazil native went 13-3 in singles at the #4 singles spot and his overall mark on the year was 17-6. The other international player who really excelled for Carolina in 2000 was Trystan Meniane, now a sophomore and a native of Martinique. Meniane finished the season with a 21-12 overall mark in singles play. He was a steady presence at the #5 singles spot where he was 13-6.
Four other Tar Heel letter winners return form the 2000 team and they will all be in the hunt for spots in the starting lineup. This group includes senior Aron Breziner (North Miami Beach, Fla.), who red-shirted last season, as well as a troika of sophomores--Greg Archer, Tyne Brownlow and Max Hilkey (Chapel Hill, N.C.).
Archer, from Beachwood, N.J., saw some action in singles last year, winning all five dual matches he played at #5 and #6 in the lineup. Archer also teamed with Drori in doubles and that coupling was 6-2 at the #3 spot over the course of the season. Brownlow (Memphis, Tenn.) was also a mainstay in the doubles lineup, playing five matches with Cheatwood, 10 matches with Petrone and four matches with Phillips in dual match action.
The final ingredients in the 2001 formula will be a pair of freshmen who will also be in the mix to fill spots in the singles lineup behind the four veteran starters. Nicholas Monroe joins the Tar Heels from Olathe, Kansas while fellow frosh Ben Aiken is a native of Chattanooga.
"I guess the phrase I would use this year is cautiously optimistic," says Paul. "It's not likely we are going to show up and blow anyone off the court this year but I do think we have enough balance in our lineup that we can be competitive in virtually every match on our schedule.
"Our primary goal is to be competitive in the Atlantic Coast Conference again. We need to find a way to win five or six matches in the league and finish in the upper division which we have consistently done since 1989.
"Secondly, we need to be good enough in the ACC and against the good teams on our non-conference schedule to merit another trip to the NCAA Tournament. Since 1992 we have gone to the NCAA Tournament in every year but one and North Carolina needs to have a tennis team that continues that kind of success rate."
With the exception of the 1999 campaign UNC has achieved an ITA ranking of 27th or higher in every year since 1990 when Paul first arrived on campus as an assistant coach. His tenure has been marked with success and 2001 shouldn't be different.
Players Mentioned
