The Wake Forest men’s tennis team is the national champion, and the Deacons did it on their home courts.
Aided by a come-from-behind win in the second set by No. 4 seed Bar Botzer, who defeated freshman Tim Seibert in straight sets, No. 1 Wake Forest defeated No. 3 Ohio State 4-2 Tuesday afternoon in front of the standing-room-only crowd at the Wake Forest Tennis Complex.
The point that gave the Deacs their first-ever NCAA Championship! #GoDeacs pic.twitter.com/8BZtXPndbI
— Wake Men's Tennis (@WakeMTennis) May 22, 2018
After never reaching the semifinals in previous tournaments, the Deacons (30-2) won their first national championship. It’s also the ninth team championship in any sport in the university’s history.
“That’s one of the reasons I chose to come to this school,” said Botzer, a 24-year-old freshman from Israel. “I think it’s a goal that we had from the beginning of the year — try and win everything that we can — especially with hosting the NCAAs. I couldn’t imagine how much fun it would be. Even the hard times were fun because we were with the people that we love.”
For Coach Tony Bresky, who just finished his sixth season as the head coach for the Deacons, the feeling of winning the national championship was very emotional.
“It feels amazing,” Bresky said. “It’s a lot of time and sacrifice and hard work goes into something like this. I think I’ve said it all along, it’s a special group of guys that we have. They care so much and I think the biggest challenge for us was to try to get them to care less.
“For me, it’s just so rewarding, not at all personally, just because of all the people that I think this means so much to.”
The feeling was understandably much different for Ty Tucker of Ohio State (34-3).
“We struggled in a couple spots tonight, but great year,” Tucker said. “I love my team. I can’t wait to get started for next season.”
The Deacons led 3-2 after wins in doubles, No. 2 singles and No. 3 singles. And after Botzer took a 4-0 lead in the first set over Tim Seibert, Seibert came back to trim it to 5-4. Botzer held in the final game of the first set to win the set 6-4.
Botzer struggled to start the second, and Seibert took advantage. Seibert broke to take a 2-0 lead and extended the lead to 4-1 and 5-2.
“The pressure’s a privilege, and you just take it point by point and match. You prepare the right way,” Bresky said. “You leave everything you have, which that was my goal, just try to coach as hard as I could, focus as hard as I could, do what I could to prepare the guys. And then you can live with the result.”
Botzer won the next four games to take a 6-5 lead after Seibert missed a forehand volley. Serving for the match, Botzer lost just one point, and Seibert sprayed a forehand off Botzer’s serve into the net to give Wake Forest the point, the match and the national championship.
“I think the bright lights and the thousands of people who were watching him play tennis kind of got the best of him because usually we get a little bit more,” Tucker said of Seibert. “I’m not taking anything away from the Wake Forest players because they’re darn good.”
Botzer fell backward in celebration on the baseline after the winning point, and his teammates and the Wake Forest coaching staff followed suit.
“Today and in general it’s a team effort,” Botzer said. “(Monday) I kind of screwed up (losing in straight sets to Valentin Vacherot of Texas A&M in the semifinals) and my friends were there to back me up. That’s the great thing about our team. There’s always going to be someone that’s going to step up.”
While Botzer trying to give the Deacons the win, Borna Gojo, who lost the first set to Mikael Torpegaard 6-4, was in a second-set tiebreaker tied 3-3.
The Deacons squeaked past the Buckeyes in doubles after Petros Chrysochos and Botzer won the first match. With the third-seeded doubles team of Christian Seraphim and Ian Dempster in a tiebreaker with Ohio State’s Matt Mendez and Hunter Tubert, Wake Forest’s No. 1 doubles team of Gojo and Skander Mansouri broke Ohio State’s JJ Wolf and Martin Joyce in the final game to give the Deacons the win and the doubles point.
With Wake Forest leading 1-0 after doubles, the Buckeyes evened it at No. 5 singles after Kyle Seelig upended Alan Gadjiev 6-2, 6-2. The Deacons regained the lead at No. 3 singles after Mansouri defeated John McNally 6-2, 6-2.
“You never really know when a match is going on, you never really know, but when Petros and Skander won and Bar was on still I felt like I knew,” Bresky said. “That’s how much I believe in him.”