{"id":1640,"date":"2011-04-24T22:24:48","date_gmt":"2011-04-25T02:24:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/capitalsports.us\/?p=1640"},"modified":"2011-04-24T22:24:48","modified_gmt":"2011-04-25T02:24:48","slug":"unc-womens-tennis-team-wins-acc-title-sunday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/?p=1640","title":{"rendered":"UNC women’s tennis team wins ACC title Sunday"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The North Carolina women’s tennis team is finally back atop the Atlantic Coast Conference.<\/p>\n

Shinann Featherston’s thrilling three-set win over Noemie Scharle gave the Tar Heels a 4-3 win over fifth-seeded Florida State and their first ACC title since 2002.<\/p>\n

Zoe De Bruycker, Jelena Durisic and Gina Suarez-Malaguti were also singles winners for Carolina, who dropped the doubles point but rallied to win the program’s sixth league tournament crown.<\/p>\n

“I feel that now, we as a program, have gotten to the point where we belong with the other amazing North Carolina teams,” head coach Brian Kalbas said after the match.<\/p>\n

“North Carolina has had such a great tradition of excellence in athletics and for us to win an ACC Championship in women’s tennis is a testament that we have a program that is up to the caliber that of the other programs here at UNC. This is why I came to North Carolina, to compete for championships, so I am really excited for our team.”<\/p>\n

The Seminoles took the doubles point with wins on courts two and three. Florida State’s Francesca Segarelli and Ruth Seaborne had a commanding win on court two, beating Durisic and Tessa Lyons, 8-3.<\/p>\n

On court three, their teammates Katie Rybakova and Amy Sargeant were victorious over Suarez-Malaguti and De Bruycker, winning 8-4.<\/p>\n

Play was stopped between Carolina’s Featherston and Lauren McHale and Florida State’s Scharle and Federica Suess after the Seminoles secured the doubles point. Featherston and McHale were leading 7-5.<\/p>\n

After losing the doubles point, Carolina needed four singles wins to rally for the victory.<\/p>\n

The first point came from De Bruycker as she returned to her winning ways. The Saratoga, Calif., sophomore dominated Rybakova, 6-2, 6-1, on court one, her fifth win over a top-50 opponent in the last month.<\/p>\n

Suarez-Malaguti gave UNC its first lead of the day after winning in straight sets, 6-2, 6-0, over Suess on court five.<\/p>\n

Durisic made it 3-1 on court two with an impressive turnaround. After dropping the first set to Francesca Segarelli, 6-2, the senior captain came back with a vengeance to take sets two and three, 6-4, 6-2, respectively. For Durisic, the win avenged a 6-1, 6-0 loss to Segarelli in last week’s regular season finale in Tallahassee.<\/p>\n

Jelena Durisic<\/p>\n

Pushed to the brink, the red-hot Seminoles would not go down without a fight.<\/p>\n

FSU snagged a win on court six as Lyons was fell to Amy Sargeant in three sets, 6-3, 5-7, 6-3.<\/p>\n

Shortly after, McHale dropped a three-setter to Ruth Seaborne, 6-3, 5-7, 6-0, giving FSU its third point of the day and knotting the dual at 3. <\/p>\n

All eyes shifted to court three as Featherston was amidst a third-set tiebreak with Scharle that would determine whether ACC title.<\/p>\n

Featherston, who fought off a match point at 30-40 and 4-5 in the third set, opened the tiebreak with a 2-0 lead. After Scharle tied it at 2, Featherston eventually got a mini-break and held serve to make the score 6-4. On match point, Scharle sent a ball long to give Featherston the 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (4) victory and Carolina its first league tournament title in nine years.<\/p>\n

“It usually happens that I’m the last one out there on the court for whatever odd reason,” Featherston said after the match. “It’s happened a lot. I love being the last one out there. I know I have it in me to win, and that’s all I think about. I refuse to lose. If I get hurt, I don’t care. If I have to stay out on the court for hours, that’s what I will do.”<\/p>\n

“For her to clinch the match yesterday and today shows what a great competitor, fighter and teammate she is to everyone,” Kalbas said of Featherston, who was named the event’s Most Valuable Performer. “If anyone deserves it, it’s her.”<\/p>\n

The victory give the Tar Heels the ACC’s automatic bid to the 2011 NCAA Women’s Tennis Championships. The pairings for the event, which begins May 13-15, will be announced on May 3.<\/p>\n

– NEWS RELEASE –<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The North Carolina women’s tennis team is finally back atop the Atlantic Coast Conference. Shinann Featherston’s thrilling three-set win over Noemie Scharle gave the Tar…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,1,80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured-stories","category-uncategorized","category-north-carolina-tar-heels","wpcat-79-id","wpcat-1-id","wpcat-80-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1640"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1640\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1643,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1640\/revisions\/1643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}