Wake Hands Men's Tennis 1st ACC Loss

WINSTON-SALEM -- The 47th-ranked Wake Forest men's tennis team handily upset No. 41 North Carolina 5-2 Wednesday afternoon at Leighton Stadium.

The Tar Heels jumped to an early advantage by winning the doubles point, but the Demon Deacons took five of the six singles matches to take the victory and give North Carolina its first conference loss of the season.

UNC's No. 3 seed team of Chad Riley and Trystan Meniane pulled out one of the Tar Heels' doubles win 8-5 against the Demon Deacon's duo of Rick Phillipp and Raul Munoz.

Tar Heels Marcio Petrone and Greg Archer grabbed a 8-6 victory against Wake's Mike Murray and Justin Kaufmann in No. 2 doubles.

Wake Forest's No. 1 team of David Loewenthal and Trent Brendon performed well, defeating North Carolina's David Cheatwood and Nick Monroe 8-4.

Dominating singles play, Wake Forest won matches two through six.

Petrone captured North Carolina's only singles win at the No. 1 seed, stopping Munoz 6-3, 2-6, 7-5.

Wake's David Bere made quick work of Archer, in straight sets 6-4, 6-0 in the fifth-seeded match.

Loewenthal outlasted Cheatwood 6-3, 7-6 (5) at the No. 3 seed, and Murray topped Monroe 7-6 (3), 6-4 in the second-seed match.

With the score tied 3-3, Brendon battled past Meniane 6-4, 0-6, 7-5 to win the fourth-seeded match and seal the victory for the Demon Deacons.

Cheatwood's and Meniane's losses snapped their respective 4-0 records against ACC opponents. Wednesday also marked Meniane's first loss in six singles and doubles matches.

Kaufmann then extended Wake's lead with a 7-5, 6-7, 6-3 win against UNC's Chad Riley at the sixth-seed.

The Tar Heels fall to 8-6 on the season and 4-1 in the ACC. Wake Forest improves to 11-7 on the year and 3-2 in the ACC.

North Carolina returns to action Saturday as the team travels to face Virginia Commonwealth at noon.