University of North Carolina Athletics
From Fetzer To Finley: Tennis' Terrific Turnaround
May 20, 2014 | Men's Tennis, Dave Lohse, Featured Writers
By Dave Lohse
Associate Athletic Communications Director
Enduring pain can be the mark of a person. It reveals the soul. It was just a year ago that pain was regularly etched in the faces of Carolina men's tennis players and their coaches Sam Paul and Tripp Phillips. The 2013 season was anything but pleasant for UNC. The Tar Heels took more than their share of lumps and finished 12-13 and without an NCAA Tournament bid for the first time since 1999.
There was a different kind of pain endured by the UNC tennis fandom late Sunday night as second-ranked Oklahoma endured to beat seventh-ranked Carolina 4-2 in the NCAA quarterfinals at Athens, Ga. It took a marathon four-and-one-half hour match to finally knock the plucky Tar Heels out of the NCAA Tournament. After the match, head coach Sam Paul talked about how this was a different kind of pain. It was shared in the tears in the locker room after a Herculean effort by this amazingly young team fell just short. UNC was on the verge of rarified air. No Tar Heel team had reached the NCAA semifinals in history. The only other squad to capture a quarterfinals berth was the 1992 unit.
Paul talked specifically that he would no longer be honored enough to coach this Tar Heel team in its entirety. Sure, beginning Wednesday, talented freshmen Brayden Schnur and Ronnie Schneider begin singles play in the tournament and that tandem will be joined by sophomore Brett Clark, who had a monster sophomore year, in doubles on Thursday. All three of these individuals have the potential for deep runs in individual action and beyond a shadow of a doubt, at the top of the line-up, they anchored Carolina all year long to a school record 27 dual match victories.
But for Coach Paul, a man of enormous resolve, the end Sunday was too sudden. This team was so much more than simply its three stars at the top of the lineup. Senior Nelson Vick had a solid season at #6. Winner of the ACC Senior Scholarship Award, he will soon be in medical school. Oystein Steiro stood tall for the Tar Heels all season at #4 and combined with Vick to comprise a nationally-ranked doubles team at #2. Freshman Jack Murray was as gritty as they come all season, winning 19 times in singles and 23 times in doubles with his fellow first-year Midwesterner, Schneider.
But who the Tar Heels were went far deeper. Esben Hess-Olesen, Carolina's #1 player last year, battled injuries all year but never wavered as the moral compass he was as the team's co-captain. UNC got great leadership from veterans like James Coxe and Andrew Gores and some key wins in dual matches by sophomore Stuart DePaolo and freshman Johan Skattum when the Tar Heels were dealing with the injury bug and developing different lineups.
There's always the risk of forgetting someone in compiling a list like this but suffice it to say that the Tar Heels developed into an entity that was surely greater than the sum of its individual parts in 2014.
This Carolina team reached the ACC Tournament finals for the first time since 2007, knocking off neighborhood rival Duke 4-1 in the semifinals after falling twice on the Blue Devils' home courts in the regular season. Wins over South Carolina State, South Carolina and Georgia carried the Tar Heels to the NCAA quarterfinals for the first time since 1992. Rare is a victory over Georgia on its home courts in the NCAA Tournament but this Tar Heel team, which started three freshmen and a sophomore, accomplished it. Clark clinched the win over the Bulldogs with his school record 37th singles victory of the season.
Perhaps Carolina's season was most clearly defined by an April trip to Florida when the Tar Heels posted back-to-back wins over Florida State and Miami by 5-2 scores. UNC was certainly favored in both matches but playing on the road in the ACC is no sure thing. Schnur was nursing an injury and Hess-Olesen eventually came out of the lineup for good that weekend because of his health issues. Others stepped up. The contributions the Tar Heels got that weekend from young players like Murray and Skattum and the cagey veteran Vick allowed the Tar Heels to leave the Sunshine State with a pair of wins and their momentum intact.
The Tar Heels followed with a strong stretch run and put up some numbers that rewrote the Tar Heel media guide's history section. The season ended too soon for sure. But the memories will endure and this season will leave an indelible mark on all who were a part of it.
If there is any doubt how this season affected young players like Clark and Schnur, watch their post-match press conference after the NCAA quarterfinal win versus Georgia at this YouTube link. The way those young men spoke of their teammates and their University impresses indeed.
