Tar Heels Battle But Fall To No. 6 Wake Forest

Sunday, April 3

Chapel Hill, N.C.

1:00 PM

North Carolina

Wake Forest

April 3, 2016 | Men's Tennis

By: UNC Athletic Communications

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – The top-ranked North Carolina men's tennis team suffered its first home loss of the season Sunday, falling 4-3 to No. 6 Wake Forest at Cone-Kenfield Tennis Center. The Tar Heels dip to 21-2 overall and 6-2 in conference play, while the Demon Deacons are now 24-4 overall, 8-1 ACC.

“Wake's got a great team – credit to them,” UNC coach Sam Paul said. “They won the big points today.”

The Tar Heels opened by taking the doubles point. After Wake won at No. 3 and UNC at No. 2, the point came down to the No. 1 spot, where the third-ranked team of Brett Clark and Robert Kelly for UNC battled Wake Forest's Skander Mansouri and Christian Seraphim, ranked 12th nationally. The Carolina duo pulled out the victory, 6-4, to send the home team into singles play with the advantage.

In singles play, the Tar Heels won first sets on five of six courts. UNC players went on to straight-sets wins at No. 1 and No. 3. At the top spot. junior Brayden Schnur earned his second win of the weekend over a top-20 opponent, beating No. 16 Mansouri 6-4, 6-4. At No. 3, Clark beat Jon Ho 6-2, 6-3.

Wake Forest won in straight sets at No. 6, putting the score at 3-1 UNC with three singles matches on-going and the Tar Heels needing just one to win the day. All three were closely contested, and in the end all three went to the visitors.

At No. 2, Carolina's Ronnie Schneider beat Wake's Petros Chrysochos 6-4 in the first set then fell 6-1 in the second. In the third, the Tar Heel junior trailed 5-2 early but fought back to 5-4 before falling 6-4.

The next to wrap up was court five, where junior Jack Murray served for the match twice in the second set before falling 7-5. In the third set he again battled but fell 6-3 to Seraphim.

The final match in play was on court four, between sophomore Kelly, who had lost just one singles match all spring and is ranked No. 82, and Bogaerts, a senior who is unranked but earned All-America and All-ACC honors last season. Kelly won the first set 7-6(4), and Bogaerts took the second, 6-2. In the third, Kelly led 4-3 when Murray's match wrapped up and court four became Centre Court. With the crowd alternately falling silent and cheering wildly, the battle there continued and Kelly fought off six match points before finally falling in a tie-breaker, 7-6(5). “I'm proud of his effort,” Paul said. “He kept fighting back and fighting back.”

Next up for the Tar Heels is a road trip to play at Notre Dame on Friday and at Boston College next Sunday. Coming off a loss for just the second time this season, UNC will do its best to learn from Sunday's experience and become a stronger squad. “It's a tough loss to a very good team,” Schnur said. “We came out here and battled as hard as we could. We had a very big 'up' on Friday (with a win over No. 3 Virginia) and one of the things we talked about is making sure we came out here and gave it our all today, and I think we did that. We came up a little bit short but we'll learn.

“You win some, you lose some – that's part the game. That's part of being an athlete. You learn from your losses and it only makes you stronger.”

April 3, 2016

Cone-Kenfield Tennis Center, Chapel Hill, N.C.

No. 6 Wake Forest 4, No. 1 North Carolina 3

Doubles

Order of match finish: (3,2,1)

1. #3 Robert Kelly/Brett Clark (UNC) d. #12 Skander Mansouri/Christian Seraphim (WFU), 6-4

2. $31 Brayden Schnur/Jack Murray (UNC) d. #48 Petros Chrysochoes/Jon Ho (WFU), 6-3

3. Romain Bogaerts/Dennis Uspensky (WFU) d. Andrew Gores/Ronnie Schneider (UNC), 6-1

Singles

Order of match finish: (6,1,3,2,5,4)

1. #46 Brayden Schnur (UNC) d. #16 Skander Mansouri (WFU), 6-4, 6-4