Men’s Tennis advances to Elite Eight

The No. 1 ranked Wake Forest tennis team continued its year of historic firsts, notching the first Elite Eight in school history with a 4-0 win over the No. 16 Stanford Cardinal.

With the win, Wake Forest improved to 29-2 on the year and kept alive its chance at hoisting the first men’s tennis National Championship trophy in school history.

While the final score was 4-0, the match was a bit tighter than it sounds in the doubles before a big sweep in the singles.

The Cardinal won at the No. 2 doubles, forcing Wake to take courts 1 and 3 to take the doubles point overall. That is exactly what the Deacs would do, taking court 3 6-3, and allowing the No. 4 nationally ranked duo of Skander Mansouri and Christian Seraphim to take court 1 7-5.

The 1-0 lead quickly became 2-0 after a dominant performance on Court 1 by No. 5 Petros Chrysochos as he defeated the No. 11 ranked Tom Fawcett 6-2, 6-0 with surprising ease.

From there No. 84 Christian Seraphim notched a win on Court 4 over Michael Genender, 6-2, 6-2 to push it to 3-0.

The match clinching point came from No. 13 Skander Mansouri at Court 3, who also got an easier than expected 6-4, 6-2 win to end Stanford’s season and send Wake to the Elite Eight.

The Demon Deacons will face No. 9 North Carolina on Saturday at 4 PM in Athens, Ga. The Tar Heels defeated the No. 8 seed California 4-1 last night in a back-and-forth match. According to Slam Tennis, Wake has a 73% chance to advance to the Final Four.

The Deacs picked up a 4-3 win over the Tar Heels in its ACC opener. This is one of the tougher draws that Wake could have received in the quarters, but if it can advance, will face a much easier Final Four opponent.

Congratulations to Tony Bresky and the entire Wake tennis team on advancing deeper in the NCAA Tournament than any other team in school history. Keep it up!

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