Men's Tennis Set For Season Opener Tuesday Vs. Queens

Tuesday, January 20

Chapel Hill

4 p.m.

North Carolina

Queens

Anthony Wright

Photo by: Jeffrey A. Camarati

January 19, 2026 | Men's Tennis

Watch Live Scoring

By: Matt Bowers

The University of North Carolina men's tennis program will begin the dual match portion of its 2025-26 schedule at home on Tuesday afternoon against Queens. The Tar Heels and Royals will begin play at 4 p.m. on the Cone-Kenfield Indoor Courts at the Chewning Tennis Center in Chapel Hill.

A live stream is available on GoHeels.com, as is live scoring.

The Tar Heel roster includes key returners in graduate student Logan Zapp and senior Constantinos Djakouris, as well as sophomores Chris Xu, Anthony Wright and Nick Mangiapane from last year's squad. A pair of transfers in senior Roan Jones (University of Alabama) and junior Niels Ratiu (Georgia) add both talent and experience, and gifted freshmen Ian Mayew, Kase Schinnerer and Oliver Narbut also boost the roster.

Carolina is coming off a tremendously successful fall campaign. A record three Tar Heels qualified for the NCAA Singles Championship tournament: Jones, Mayew and Ratiu. Two UNC doubles teams also qualified for the NCAA Championship: Ratiu with Xu and Mayew with Schinnerer.

Carolina's three singles qualifiers tie the most in program history in a single season and are its highest total since 2016, when Brett Clark, Brayden Schnur and Ronnie Schneider made the field. UNC's two doubles qualifiers also tie the school record and are the team's most since 2023, when the duos of Casey Kania/Ryan Seggerman and Brian Cernoch/Benjamin Kittay both made the field.

Mayew is UNC's first freshman to qualify for the NCAA Singles Championship since Benjamin Sigouin in 2018.

Carolina enters the season once again under the tutelage of 33rd-year head coach Sam Paul, the winningest active coach in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

After Tuesday's match, the Tar Heels will make the short drive to Winston-Salem, N.C., to take part in the ITA Kickoff Weekend hosted by Wake Forest University. Carolina will meet Vanderbilt on Friday before meeting either the host Demon Deacons or Virginia Tech on Saturday. Whichever of the four participating teams wins two matches during the weekend will earn a berth to the ITA Men's National Indoor Championship in February in Dallas and Waco, Texas.