Lucas: Person Over Player – University of North Carolina Athletics

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 16^th-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…