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Men's tennis kicks Tar Heels back to Chapel Hill, 6-1**
The Tar Heels travelled to Durham pumped up to win, just like any Carolina team preparing to play the Blue Devils. The men's tennis team, however, had other plans for the UNC squad -- a sound defeat.
No. 7 Duke handed a 6-1 loss to No. 18 North Carolina at the Duke Tennis Stadium yesterday.
The Blue Devils (17-5, 6-0 in the Atlantic Coast Conference) got off to a strong start as they captured two out of the three doubles matches to claim the first point. At the second position, juniors Chris Pressley and Philippe Moggio rolled past Tar Heels Brett Hutton and Paul Harsanyi, 8-4. Freshmen Adam Gusky and Sven Koehler gained the other doubles win at the third position, smashing UNC's Wells Brabham and Ryan Harper, 8-2.
The only doubles loss came at No. 1, where sophomores Rob Chess and Peter Ayers fell to Tar Heels David Caldwell and Brint Morrow, 9-8 (7-5).
Once the singles matches got underway, the Blue Devils clearly had control of the contest. Gusky was the first Duke player to clinch a win, taking little time to finish off Cooper Pulliam at the No. 4 spot, 6-2, 6-3. Moggio soon achieved another quick win for Duke, beating Hutton, 6-3, 6-4.
It took a little bit more time for the rest of the Blue Devils to complete the thrashing of the Tar Heels. Ayers, competing at the third spot, played a hard-fought battle with UNC's Harsanyi. After several controversial calls and an emotional drive by the Blue Devil in the second set, Ayers took the match 6-4, 6-4.
Pressley, ranked No. 7 in the nation, found himself matched up at the top spot with UNC's star and the nation's 12th-ranked player, David Caldwell. The match was almost all Pressley, as Caldwell went down, 6-2, 6-3.
Chess had a tough battle as the No. 2 seed, playing Carolina's Brint Morrow. Chess, ranked 32nd in the nation, just couldn't put away the 61st-ranked Tar Heel, finally falling to Morrow, 4-6, 6-2, 6-3.
"[Morrow] played well," Duke head coach Jay Lapidus said. "[Morrow's] game matched up well against Rob's. Rob didn't play quite as well as he has been recently, but there is no disgrace in losing to [Morrow], though."
The last battle was the only other three setter of the day, pitting Koehler against Carolina's Brabham. Koehler took the first set but the Tar Heel battled back to send it to a third. The last set came down to the wire, but Duke's Koehler finally sneaked by Brabham, 6-3, 4-6, 7-5.
The Duke win was closer than the score indicated, however. It was highly emotional and not that easy of a win for the Blue Devils.
"We're not that much better than [UNC] is," Lapidus said. "It was a good, solid match. Of course, anytime we play North Carolina, it's going to be pretty emotional. It was a dogfight all the way. [UNC] fought really well."
The day was filled with tough points and long games. The Tar Heels were pumped up and ready for the match, but the toughness of the Duke team was just more than North Carolina could handle.
"I told the guys before the match that [UNC] would run through the fence to try to get points," Lapidus said. "So I told our guys that they should be prepared to do the same."
The Blue Devils have one remaining ACC match with Clemson on Saturday. If the Blue Devils can hold on to defeat the Tigers, Duke will clinch the regular season ACC title before heading into the ACC tournament.
"Clemson is good," Lapidus said. "They're one of those teams that loves to play Duke. [Clemson] is looking forward to playing us. It should be a good match."
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