Four wins in four days over some of the top teams in America earned the fifth-ranked UNC women’s tennis team the ITA National Indoor Championship, capped off by a 4-2 victory over the No. 6 Pepperdine Waves on Monday afternoon.

Playing the tournament in Madison, Wisconsin, head coach Brian Kalbas’s Tar Heels certainly brought along their best effort up north with them.

After winning the doubles point to take the early 1-0 lead, UNC then got singles victories from Alexa Graham, Sara Daavettila and Jessie Aney to clinch the title.

Graham (6-4, 6-3) and Daavettila (7-5, 6-2) each won in straight sets to give the Tar Heels a 3-1 lead, following a dominant victory from Pepperdine’s Evgeniya Levashova over No. 10 Makenna Jones (6-0, 6-2).

It took the full three sets for Aney to finish off her win (6-3, 4-6, 6-3), but the celebration afterwards made it well worth the wait for the Tar Heels.

Although UNC has played in each of the last four ITA National Indoor Championship Finals, the team has come up short the last two years–giving this one a feeling of redemption.

In total, this is the third ITA National Indoor title for the Tar Heels in program history–all of which have come since 2013.

 

 

Photo via Jeffrey A. Camarati (UNC Athletics)

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