Pos. Player Class Hometown Singles Overall Dual Matches
#1 Raian Luchici Jr. Timisoara, Romania 25-13 14-11
#2 Brad Pomeroy Jr. Asheville, N.C. 18-15 14-11
#3 Geoff Boyd Sr. Atlanta, Ga. 19-11 14-8
#4 Derek Porter Jr. Coral Springs, Fla. 21-11 15-8
#5 Benjamin Carlotti Fr. Paris, France 24-7 14-6
#6 Jonathan Janda Sr. Shelby, N.C. 11-6 6-4
FA Sebastian Guejman So. Buenos Aires, Argentina 13-6 13-6
SA Aly Mandour So. Cairo, Egypt 0-1 0-1
Doubles Overall Dual Matches
#1 Geoff Boyd/Brad Pomeroy 26-11 14-9
#2 Jonathan Janda/Raian Luchici 18-9 15-7
#3 Aly Mandour/Derek Porter 0-2 0-2
Head Coach: Sam Paul (Presbyterian `83), 12th season as head coach at North Carolina, 188-105 in dual matches, 67-31 in ACC dual matches, 1996, 2000, 2002 & 2004 ACC Coach of the Year, 1996, 2000, 2004 ITA Regional Coach of the Year
Assistant Coach: Don Johnson (North Carolina `90), 2005 ITA Mideast Region Assistant Coachof the Year, 2001 Wimbledon Doubles Champion, 2000 Wimbledon Mixed Doubles Champion, 2001 U.S. Open Doubles Finalist, 2001 U.S. Davis Cup Doubles Participant
Carolina's Men's Tennis Highlights/Notes In 2005 • The 34th-rated North Carolina men's tennis team will play in an NCAA regional hosted by the Boise State University men's tennis team with action Friday and Saturday, May 13 and 14 at the Appleton Tennis Center on the Boise State University campus. This marks North Carolina's 13th NCAA Tournament appearance in the past 14 seasons. The Boise State men's tennis team, ranked 31st nationally and the 2005 WAC Champions, will host 2005 NCAA Tournament First and Second Round Matches, Friday-Saturday, May 13-14, on the Boise State campus. The Broncos will be hosting 16th ranked Texas A&M, 34th ranked North Carolina and 68th ranked Montana State. On Friday, May 13, No. 16 Texas A&M (15-8 overall) will play No. 68 Montana State (19-6 overall) at 1 p.m. (team introductions at 12:45), then No. 31 Boise State (30-7 overall) will play No. 34 North Carolina (16-10) at 5:30 p.m. (team introductions at 5:15). All matches will be played at the Appleton Tennis Center on the Boise State campus. If the first match runs long, a maximum of 45 minutes for warm-up will be allowed (as was discussed on NCAA sites' conference call) (before introductions) for the second match on Friday. The winner of Saturday's match will go on to the NCAA National Championship (Sweet 16) in College Station, Texas, on the Texas A&M campus. On Saturday, May 14th, the winners of the two Frday matches will play each other at 5:30 p.m. (introductions at 5:15 p.m.). The winner of the match will advance to College Station, Texas, to play on May 21-30.
• Carolina has now been invited to the team championships portion of the NCAA Tournament for six straight years and 13 times in the last 14 years. The Tar Heels have been in the team tournament of the NCAA Championships in 11 of the 12 years since Sam Paul became the UNC head coach. The Tar Heels also went to the tournament as a team in 1992 and 1993 when Coach Sam Paul was Allen Morris' chief assistant coach at Carolina. The only year in the recent span the Tar Heels did not make the tournament was 1999 when they finished 11-14. Carolina also made the Team Tournament in both 1977 and 1978. Prior to 1977, the NCAA Tournament was a flighted championship with teams earning points as their players advanced to through the singles and doubles brackets. The Tar Heels are 8-14 in dual matches in the NCAA Team Tournament since 1977.
UNC in the NCAA Team Tournament (8-14)
1977--Lost to Southern California 5-4 in round of 16
1978--Lost to UCLA 7-2 in round of 16
1992--Defeated TCU 5-3 in round of 16; lost to UCLA 5-2 in quarterfinals
1993--Defeated Harvard 5-3 in first round; lost to Southern California 5-2 in round of 16
1994--Defeated Clemson 4-2 in regional first round, defeated South Carolina 4-2 in regional second round, lost to Georgia Tech 4-3 in regional final
1995--Lost to Clemson 4-3 in regional first round
1996--Defeated Louisiana-Lafayette 4-2 in regional first round, lost to Texas 4-2 in regional final
1997--Lost to Clemson 4-0 in regional first round
1998--Defeated Georgia Tech 4-1 in regional first round, lost to South Carolina 4-1 in regional final
2000--Defeated Ball State 4-1 in regional first round, lost to Tennessee 4-2 in regional final
2001--Lost to Arkansas 4-0 in regional first round
2002--Lost to Virginia Tech 4-2 in regional first round
2003--Lost to Oklahoma State 4-0 in regional first round
2004--Defeated South Carolina State 4-0 in regional first round, lost to Ohio State 4-3 in regional final
• Junior Raian Luchici this season became the 12th player in Coach Sam Paul's tenure as North Carolina's men's tennis coach to earn an invitation to the NCAA Men's Tennis singles championships. The field of 64 players was announced by the NCAA Tennis Committee on May 5. Luchici, a junior from Timisoara, Romania, received an at-large bid in singles from the NCAA's Mideast Region. A total of sixty-four players were selected for the singles phase of the NCAA Championships which will begin May 25 and run through May 30 at the George P. Mitchel Tennis Center on the campus of Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. Luchici is ranked 57th nationally in the latest Intercollegiate Tennis Association national singles rankings, released May 2. He plays the No. 1 singles spot on the 34th-ranked Tar Heel team which has earned a spot in the NCAA regional to be played May 13-14 at Boise, Idaho. UNC will meet host Boise State in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. UNC as a team will compete in its sixth straight NCAA Tournament and its 13th in the last 14 seasons. Luchici has an overall singles record this year of 25-13, including an 8-9 mark against nationally-ranked opponents. Since Sam Paul became an assistant tennis coach at UNC in the fall of 1989, 17 UNC players have been invited to the NCAA singles championships. Five players have now earned inviations in the past four years including Marcio Petrone in 2002, Trystan Meniane and Nick Monroe in 2003, Nick Monroe in 2004 and Raian Luchici in 2005. Both David Caldwell (1994-96) and Tripp Phillips (1997-98, 2000) played in the NCAA singles championships three times while mentored by Coach Sam Paul.
• University of North Carolina assistant men's tennis coach Don Johnson was named May 10 as the winner of the Intercollegiate Tennis Association's Mideast Region Assistant Coach of the Year Award. Johnson, a two-time Wimbledon champion as a professional doubles player, returned to his alma mater as a full-time assistant coach in 2003 after serving as a volunteer assistant for several years while playing on the pro tour. "Don is certainly deserving of this award. He has given so much to our program for so many years. This award not only recognizes his outstanding coaching ability but also his leadership in helping teach our young men how to be successful on and off the court," said Tar Heel head coach Sam Paul, in his 12th season at the helm of the UNC program. The Tar Heels are 16-10 this season and ranked No. 34 in the nation. UNC earned a bid to the NCAA Tournament for the 13th time in the last 14 seasons and the Tar Heels will meet Boise State in trhe first round of play Friday in Boise, Idaho. In Johnson's first season back in Chapel Hill on a full-time basis in 2003-04, UNC finished 23-5 and shared the ACC regular-season title. The Tar Heels were the No. 11 seed in the 2004 NCAA Tournament and finished 17th in the ITA rankings. Johnson is a 1990 graduate of UNC. He led the Tar Heels to the ACC title as a senior in 1990 while being named All-ACC. He toured professionally for several years as one of the world's best doubles players, representing the U.S. in the Davis Cup in 2001, winning the mixed doubles at Wimbledon in 2000 with Kimberly Po, winning the gentleman's doubles at Wimbledon in 2001 with Jared Palmer and reaching the finals of the 2001 United States Open in doubles while playing with Palmer, a Stanford graduate.
• North Carolina reached the semifinals of the 2005 ACC Tournament by beating NC State 4-0 in the first round and upsetting No. 8 Duke 4-2 in the quarterfinals. The Tar Heels fell to Florida State 4-2 in the semifinals.
• North Carolina became only the second team seeded as low as No. 7 in the ACC Tournament to reach the semifinal round when the Tar Heels accomplished the feat in 2005. The only other team seeded No. 7 or below to reach the semifinals was Clemson as the No. 7 seed in 2001.
• When the Tar Heels defeated No. 8 Duke 4-2 on April 22 after losing to the Blue Devils 7-0 on April 13, it marked the first instance in school history, dating back to the start of the UNC tennis program in 1980, that a Carolina had been shut out by an opponent in the first meeting of the season only to come back and avenge that defeat later in the same season.
• Carolina's victory over Duke in the 2005 ACC Tournament semifinals broke an 11-match losing streak for the Tar Heels at the hands of the Blue Devils. Duke had won nine straight regular season meetings and two ACC Tournament meetings. Carolina's last victory over Duke had been on April 11, 1996 when the Tar Heels prevailed 4-3 in a regular season matchup in Durham, N.C. UNC's last win over Duke in ACC Tournament play had been on April 19, 1992 when the Tar Heels beat Duke 5-4 in the ACC Tournament championship match at Charlotte, N.C.
• The Tar Heels' 4-2 victory over No. 8 Duke on April 22, 2005 marked the highest rated opponent Carolina had beaten since April 2, 2004 when the Tar Heels beat third-ranked Georgia 4-2 in Athens, Ga. • Geoff Boyd (Atlanta, Ga.) and Jonathan Janda (Shelby, N.C.) serve as the senior co-captains of the 2005 North Carolina men's tennis team. Boyd was a 2004 All-Atlantic Coast Conference honoree and he was recently named the Athletic Director's Scholar-Athlete Award winner for the Tar Heel men's tennis team for the 2004-05 school year. A four-year starter for Coach Sam Paul's team, Boyd has moved into the Top 15 in career singles wins and into the Top 10 in career doubles wins. Boyd is 75-44 in career singles and 86-47 in career doubles heading into the NCAA Tournament. Boyd won the Intercollegiate Tennis Association's Mideast Region doubles championship playing with Brad Pomeroy in the fall of 2005 and advanced to the national tournament where the duo made it to the quarterfinals. Boyd and Pomeroy achieved a high rank of No. 9 in doubles this year on January 11, 2005. Janda was also a 2004 All-ACC selection. He heads into the NCAA Championship with a career doubles mark of 50-24. In singles, Janda has a career record of 12-6 in three-set matches, including a 7-1 mark as a senior. Janda's overall career mark in ACC doubles matches is 12-5. Janda had the clinching win in Carolina's ACC Tournament victories over both NC State in the first round and eighth-ranked Duke in the quarterfinals. Janda rallied to beat Duke's Ned Samuelson 4-6, 7-6, 6-4, saving a match point in the second set in the process, to score the clinching point at No. 5 singles in the win over the Blue Devils. In the first round of the ACC Tournament, Janda had the clinching point as he avenged a regular season loss to the Wolfpack's William Noblitt by winning 6-4, 6-4. Noblitt had beaten Janda in the regular season 7-5, 7-6.
• Junior Raian Luchici (Timisoara, Romania) was named April 20 to the 2005 All-Atlantic Coast Conference Team. This was the second successive season that Luchici was named to the All-ACC team since transferring to Carolina after playing at the University of Georgia in his freshman year in 2002-03. North Carolina has had at least one player named to the All-ACC team in every year Sam Paul has served as an assistant coach (1990-93) and as the head coach (1994-05) at UNC. In fact, the last time Carolina failed to place a player on the All-ACC Team was 1988.
• Raian Luchici's junior year at Carolina was highlighted by his 50th career win in singles against Purdue on February 13. Luchici is currently ranked No. 57 in singles nationally by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association. Luchici's singles record this year is 25-13. He ranks first on the team in singles victories in 2004-05 with 25.
• Senior Geoff Boyd (Atlanta, Ga.) achieved his 80th career doubles win when he teamed with junior Brad Pomeroy (Asheville, N.C.) to beat a tandem from Elon on February 27, 2005. Boyd head into the NCAA Tournament with 86 career doubles wins.
• Freshman Benjamin Carlotti (Paris, France) posted a team-best winning streak of 10 successive singles win during fall play in 2004. Carlotti has been one of UNC's most successful player in terms of total singles wins as he is 24-7 heading into the NCAA Championship including 14-6 in dual match play.
• Junior Brad Pomeroy has done yeoman's work for the Tar Heels this season after moving from the No. 5 spot in the lineup in 2004-05 to the No. 2 spot this season. Pomeroy is 18-15 overall in singles and 11-10 at No. 2. He earned his 49th career singles victory in dramatic fashion against Miami on March 27 as he rallied from two match points down against No. 67 Tim Krebs of Miami. With Krebs serving at 6-4, 5-4 (40-15), Pomeroy rallied to defeat Krebs in three sets and clinch UNC's 4-3 win over the Hurricanes. The match marked the seventh time in Pomeroy's career that he had rallied from a set down to win in singles. Pomeroy went on to earn his 50th career singles win with a 7-6. 7-6 victory over 95th-ranked Arvid Puranean of Virginia Tech in the Tar Heels' 5-2 victory over the Hokies on April 2.
• Carolina has an all-time record of 27-18 since the ACC Tournament went from a flighted format to a team format in 1986. UNC is 2-0 in first round matches, 12-7 in quarterfinal matches, 8-4 in semifinals and 3-5 in championship matches. UNC was also 2-2 in consolation matches in 1986, 1988 and 1989. There was no tournament in 1987 and consolation bracket matches were eliminated following the 1989 tournament. In ACC Tournament play, UNC is 4-5 against Clemson, 3-6 against Duke, 1-2 against Florida State, 4-1 against Georgia Tech, 2-0 against Maryland, 7-0 against NC State, 3-4 against Virginia and 3-0 against Wake Forest.
• The University of North Carolina men's and Central Alabama Community College women's tennis teams were honored as the March 2005 recipients of the Intercollegiate Tennis Association National Team Sportsmanship Award. The ITA National Team Sportsmanship Award is a monthly award that goes to one men's and one women's team that has exemplified outstanding sportsmanship, character and ethical conduct in the true spirit of competition and college tennis. The winners are selected by the ITA Ethics and Infractions Committee from nominations received from all ITA member institutions (NCAA Divisions I, II and III, NAIA and Junior/Community Colleges). This monthly award began in 2003. North Carolina and Central Alabama were this season's first recipients of the National Team Sportsmanship Award. UNC is coached by Sam Paul and CACC is coached by Kathleen Thompson. Paul is in his 12th year as head coach for the Tar Heels; Thompson is in her fifth season as CACC head coach. In addition to the obvious reasons, sportsmanship and fair play are considered important in college tennis due to the fact that players make their own line calls during a match.
• North Carolina's Benjamin Carlotti was named Atlantic Coast Conference Men's Tennis Performer of the Week March 28 after leading the Tar Heels to pair of conference, road victories the previous week. In a match-up against NC State, Carlotti posted a 6-4, 6-4 straight set victory over the Wolfpack's Val Banada at the number five singles position. The win sparked the Tar Heels to a 4-3 road win over No. 37 NC State. Against Miami the following Sunday, the freshman from Paris, France rallied from a set down against the Hurricanes' Vivek Subramanian to win 5-7, 6-4, 7-6. The win by Carlotti in the third set tiebreaker tied up the match at 3-3 and Brad Pomeroy eventuallywon in singles to allow the Tar Heels a 4-3 triumph.
• Junior Derek Porter (Coral Springs, Fla.) has had an outstanding junior year for the Tar Heels in singles play. He heads into the NCAA Tournament with a singles mark of 21-11 overall and 16-8 in dual matches. Porter had a pair of key singles win in the ACC Tournament. In the quarterfinal round, he defeated Charles Brezac of Duke 6-3, 7-5. In the semifinals, Porter rallied from a 6-1, 5-1 deficit to defeat Chris Westerhof of Florida State 1-6, 7-5, 6-3.
• A year ago, Sam Paul was named the 2004 Atlantic Coast Conference Coach of the Year. That was the fourth time in his 12-year career that Paul has won the award. Prior to 2005, Sam Paul and Jay Lapidus of Duke were the only two coaches to win the award in the decade beginning in 2000. Paul won in 2000, 2002 and 2004 and Lapidus in 2001 and 2003. Sam Paul ranks fourth in ACC history in career dual match wins in ACC play with 67 and he is second in UNC history in that category behind only Coach Don Skakle (1959-80).
• UNC won the 2002 Atlantic Coast Conference title, marking Carolina's 25th title and the first crown since 1992. Both the men's and women's teams won ACC titles in 2002, the second double ACC title for Carolina and first since the 1977-78 school year. Carolina's 25 ACC men's titles rank first among league schools. Clemson and Duke are tied for second with 11 titles each.
• Carolina has played 18 of its first 26 dual matches this year against nationally-ranked teams.
• Sam Paul is now in his 16th season at North Carolina. He came to Chapel Hill as an assistant coach in the fall of 1989 and became head coach following the 1993 season. His career record as head coach is 188-105 including 67-32 in ACC regular season matches.
• In 14 of the past 16 years, Carolina's #1 singles player has earned All-America honors and/or participated in the singles phase of the NCAA Championships.
• Since 1990 when Sam Paul came to Carolina as assistant coach, UNC has a 121-47 record against opponents from the ACC including matches played in the regular season, ACC Tournament and NCAA Tournament. During that time UNC is 15-9 against Clemson, 7-16 against Duke, 15-5 against Florida State, 17-6 against Georgia Tech, 17-1 against Maryland, 1-0 against Miami, 22-0 against NC State, 13-6 against Virginia, 1-0 against Virginia Tech and 13-4 against Wake Forest. • UNC has achieved a national ranking in the Top 30 at some point in the season in 15 of the last 16 years. Carolina's highest ranking this year was 17th on October 13, 2004. • The Tar Heels have won 25 ACC championships in school history which is more than any other league school. Clemson has won 11 titles, Duke 11, Maryland two, NC State two and Virginia two.
• The Tar Heels are 1373-341-8 in dual matches all-time and 288-75 in ACC regular season dual matches all-time.
• Carolina's all-time record against its ACC opponents since the Tar Heels started playing tennis in 1908 include 38-23 against Clemson, 84-28 against Duke, 22-8 against Florida State, 26-13 against Georgia Tech, 52-8 against Maryland, 7-18 against Miami, 79-5 against NC State, 71-16 against Virginia, 16-1 against Virginia Tech and 79-10 against Wake Forest.
• The Tar Heels have never faced either Boise State or Montana State in their tennis history. UNC is 1-8 all-time against Texas A&M.