University of North Carolina Athletics
Photo by: Jeffrey A. Camarati
Lucas: Person Over Player
April 17, 2023 | Women's Tennis, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
Friday's win over Duke showed off more than just an undefeated regular season.
By Adam Lucas
On Friday, Carolina women's tennis coach Brian Kalbas knew his team would be playing for sole possession of the Atlantic Coast Conference regular season championship. He knew they'd be playing to finish out a perfect regular season, as his Tar Heels stood 26-0 overall. He knew the program was dedicating a brand new, $18.5 million building, the Chewning Tennis Center, one of the finest facilities in college tennis. He knew the opponent was Duke, the third-ranked team in the country (the Tar Heels, of course, are number-one).
All of which made it the perfect day for Kalbas to juggle his starting lineup.
College tennis scoring can be complicated. You don't have to grasp all the nuances, but just know that the doubles point is often critical. Three different doubles teams square off in matches of one set each; the team that wins two of those three matches gets the doubles point.
Coming into Friday, Duke had won 11 straight doubles points. Kalbas didn't care. He inserted senior Sophia Patel into his No. 3 doubles team, pairing her with her best friend, Elizabeth Scotty. Patel had played in just four dual match doubles events this year. But Kalbas felt putting Patel--who is in her fifth year and loves Carolina tennis so much she is paying her own way this season--on the court on her Senior Day was more important than any single match.
"Ultimately, I thought it was important because this has been a really special year and a special team," he said. "This has been the most unselfish team we've ever had. She's been an incredible leader and role model for us. She loves this place, and so I felt it was very important for our team and for her."
"It was so important for Soph to play because she is such an asset to our team in so many other ways that aren't just tennis," said Carson Tanguilig, who is the 16th-ranked singles player in the country and also teams with Crawley to form the fourth-ranked doubles pair nationally. "She has been an incredible leader, teammate and friend to all of us the entire year and she deserved every minute on that court…It is hard to explain the impact she has on everyone unless you have experienced it yourself."
The results? Carolina won the doubles point, cruised past Duke, 4-1, and completed a 27-0 regular season. It's extraordinarily difficult to go undefeated in any college sport. The other teams have good players, too. But the Tar Heels made it look deceptively easy.
There are very few coaches in the Carolina athletic department who have a better overall feel for their team than Kalbas. He came to Chapel Hill in 2003, the same year that Roy Williams arrived, and has proceeded to build one of college tennis' most formidable programs. The Tar Heels have won the ITA Indoor national title four straight seasons. In ACC matches this year, they won 71 games while dropping just 13.
But the people involved are much more impressive than just the simple numbers. On Friday, the nation's number-one player, Fiona Crawley, walked nervously back and forth as her team lined up for the national anthem. Not because Crawley was about to play number-one doubles and then face a top-five national player in singles. But because she had volunteered to sing the national anthem as a Senior Day gift for Patel. "It's kind of a running joke," Crawley explained to the huge crowd, "that I love to sing but I'm not a great singer."
It is perhaps true that Crawley is more likely to eventually play professional tennis than be a professional singer. But her willingness to put her teammates over herself is indicative of the entire mindset of the program.
That's what Kalbas has built in Chapel Hill, where—in two of the most incredible statistics in the entire athletic department—he has never had an undergraduate transfer, and every person who has played for him has graduated from Carolina.
The Tar Heels begin postseason play this week in Cary at the ACC Championships. They'll face the winner of Notre Dame and Wake Forest on Friday. Regardless of the results there, the Heels are in line to host at the shiny new Chewning Tennis Center on the opening weekend of NCAA Tournament play.
The strength of the overall program, not just the powerhouse 2023 team, was on display over the weekend, with numerous women's tennis alumni back in town just to watch the current Heels. They're drawn back by success, of course. It's fun to watch Carolina whip Duke, no matter what sport.
But they're also brought back by the environment around the program, by the atmosphere that makes Crawley want to sing in front of complete strangers and players understand that a teammate's value to the team goes far beyond wins and losses.
"In our program, we talk about the person over the player," Kalbas said. "It's a cornerstone of how we recruit. For the good of our culture, it's not something we can just say. The proof is in the pudding."
On Friday, Carolina women's tennis coach Brian Kalbas knew his team would be playing for sole possession of the Atlantic Coast Conference regular season championship. He knew they'd be playing to finish out a perfect regular season, as his Tar Heels stood 26-0 overall. He knew the program was dedicating a brand new, $18.5 million building, the Chewning Tennis Center, one of the finest facilities in college tennis. He knew the opponent was Duke, the third-ranked team in the country (the Tar Heels, of course, are number-one).
All of which made it the perfect day for Kalbas to juggle his starting lineup.
College tennis scoring can be complicated. You don't have to grasp all the nuances, but just know that the doubles point is often critical. Three different doubles teams square off in matches of one set each; the team that wins two of those three matches gets the doubles point.
Coming into Friday, Duke had won 11 straight doubles points. Kalbas didn't care. He inserted senior Sophia Patel into his No. 3 doubles team, pairing her with her best friend, Elizabeth Scotty. Patel had played in just four dual match doubles events this year. But Kalbas felt putting Patel--who is in her fifth year and loves Carolina tennis so much she is paying her own way this season--on the court on her Senior Day was more important than any single match.
"Ultimately, I thought it was important because this has been a really special year and a special team," he said. "This has been the most unselfish team we've ever had. She's been an incredible leader and role model for us. She loves this place, and so I felt it was very important for our team and for her."
"It was so important for Soph to play because she is such an asset to our team in so many other ways that aren't just tennis," said Carson Tanguilig, who is the 16th-ranked singles player in the country and also teams with Crawley to form the fourth-ranked doubles pair nationally. "She has been an incredible leader, teammate and friend to all of us the entire year and she deserved every minute on that court…It is hard to explain the impact she has on everyone unless you have experienced it yourself."
The results? Carolina won the doubles point, cruised past Duke, 4-1, and completed a 27-0 regular season. It's extraordinarily difficult to go undefeated in any college sport. The other teams have good players, too. But the Tar Heels made it look deceptively easy.
There are very few coaches in the Carolina athletic department who have a better overall feel for their team than Kalbas. He came to Chapel Hill in 2003, the same year that Roy Williams arrived, and has proceeded to build one of college tennis' most formidable programs. The Tar Heels have won the ITA Indoor national title four straight seasons. In ACC matches this year, they won 71 games while dropping just 13.
But the people involved are much more impressive than just the simple numbers. On Friday, the nation's number-one player, Fiona Crawley, walked nervously back and forth as her team lined up for the national anthem. Not because Crawley was about to play number-one doubles and then face a top-five national player in singles. But because she had volunteered to sing the national anthem as a Senior Day gift for Patel. "It's kind of a running joke," Crawley explained to the huge crowd, "that I love to sing but I'm not a great singer."
It is perhaps true that Crawley is more likely to eventually play professional tennis than be a professional singer. But her willingness to put her teammates over herself is indicative of the entire mindset of the program.
That's what Kalbas has built in Chapel Hill, where—in two of the most incredible statistics in the entire athletic department—he has never had an undergraduate transfer, and every person who has played for him has graduated from Carolina.
The Tar Heels begin postseason play this week in Cary at the ACC Championships. They'll face the winner of Notre Dame and Wake Forest on Friday. Regardless of the results there, the Heels are in line to host at the shiny new Chewning Tennis Center on the opening weekend of NCAA Tournament play.
The strength of the overall program, not just the powerhouse 2023 team, was on display over the weekend, with numerous women's tennis alumni back in town just to watch the current Heels. They're drawn back by success, of course. It's fun to watch Carolina whip Duke, no matter what sport.
But they're also brought back by the environment around the program, by the atmosphere that makes Crawley want to sing in front of complete strangers and players understand that a teammate's value to the team goes far beyond wins and losses.
"In our program, we talk about the person over the player," Kalbas said. "It's a cornerstone of how we recruit. For the good of our culture, it's not something we can just say. The proof is in the pudding."
Players Mentioned
/ Women's Tennis
/ Women's Tennis
/ Women's Tennis
/ Women's Tennis
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