Sophomore Alp Horoz was down 3-0 in the third and final set of his singles match Sunday, with a team victory against No. 19 Vanderbilt (3-1) on the line, when he picked up on something that could give him the edge.

“My opponent was kind of tired, and the coaches and I noticed that,” he said.

Horoz pressed the advantage and won six straight games to win the set and his match, 7-6 (7-4), 6-7 (8-6), 6-3, clinching an impressive 4-3 road upset over the Commodores.

The No. 34 Wildcats (1-1) had a tough slate lined up this weekend, falling on the road to No. 28 North Carolina State (3-0), 4-3 on Friday before bouncing back against Vanderbilt.

“It was all about being more aggressive,” head coach Arvid Swan said about his team’s focus between the two matches. “Starting matches quickly, starting sets quickly. It was a team effort.”

And clearly Swan’s troops were in need of a pep talk after a heart breaker against the Wolfpack. In that match, NU actually took a 3-2 lead before dropping the final two singles contests to fall a point short.

“Friday was tough,” sophomore Sam Shropshire said, “but if you get through those you have days like (Sunday). That’s why we play.”

Shropshire, the Cats’ No. 1 singles player, split his two singles matches over the weekend, winning in straight sets against NC State’s senior Robbie Mudge, the No. 123 singles player in the nation, before taking 10th-ranked Vanderbilt senior Gonzales Austin to three sets and eventually falling, 4-6, 6-3, 3-6.

Fellow sophomore and 108th-ranked Strong Kirchheimer played well on the road trip, notching a victory over 39th-ranked NC State sophomore Nick Horton, 7-5, 6-4, to give the Cats that 3-2 lead. Junior Fedor Baev and senior Alex Pasareanu lost their singles matches to hand over the victory to NC State.

With NU down 3-2 against Vanderbilt, it was Kirchheimer who shook off a bad second set to take the third against junior Kris Yee and win his singles match, 6-4, 0-6, 7-6 (7-2). The win knotted the team point totals at 3 — and had Kirchheimer beaming — setting the stage for Horoz’s clinching match.

Doubles play proved to be a glaring weakness for the Cats. With a team point awarded to the winner of two of three one-set doubles contests at the outset of the match, doubles play can set the tone for the rest of the points to come. This is why NU’s defeats in doubles in both matches was on Swan’s mind.

“We’ve got to do a lot of work on doubles, continue to improve,” Swan said.

Shropshire echoed his coach’s sentiment.

“You’re always tweaking things, trying new teams and what have you, to try to get that doubles point,” he said.

Although Sunday’s exciting win over the Commodores gives the Cats some momentum going forward, Swan was careful to put things in perspective.

“There was a big step up in play from Friday to Sunday,” he said. “But the schedule we play is just brutally tough. We’ve just got to continue seeing improvement.”

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