NORCROSS, Ga. - It was only appropriate that in a match so close, with so many points decided by only a matter of inches, that the final ball hit by Duke's Alberto Brause would become lodged in the net. As it hung suspended in time just below the tape, the Clemson players stormed the court and mobbed teammate Bruce Li, celebrating their first Atlantic Coast Conference Championship since 1989.
The 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 score doesn't do justice to the tense nature of Li's triumph over Brause, which gave the Tigers a 4-3 victory. It broke a string of four straight ACC Tournament Championships for the Blue Devils, who had won the regular season crown this year. The 22nd-ranked Tigers finished second in the conference standings, their only loss coming on Apr. 12, when the No. 12 Blue Devils clinched a 4-3 win on another three-set, come-from-behind victory in the final match.
"I'm proud of my guys," Duke coach Jay Lapidus said. "They fought hard. They played a great match. We've won a lot of close ones like that over the course of the year, so we just ran out of luck. We can't be perfect all the time. It was one of those matches where things just didn't seem to go for us."
With the two top seeds tied at 3-3 in the tournament finals on Sunday, all eyes turned to the No. 2 singles match where Brause, the 34th-ranked player in the country, was battling the unranked Li. Down a break and trailing 5-3 in the decisive third set, the Duke junior fought off four championship points to hold his serve.
Li jumped ahead 30-0 in the next game before Brause won three consecutive points, giving himself a chance to break back and pull even in the set. He ran down a Li drop shot and managed to scoop it over the net, but the Clemson junior reached out and guided the ball past the off-balance Brause, bringing up deuce. After Brause pounced on a second serve to take the advantage, Li volleyed his way back to deuce and won the final two points for the championship.
"I went for it and I'm not really disappointed with myself and the way I played," Brause said. "I think he came out with some good shots and that's how he beat me. I did not have the good luck there because some shots went out for me."
Li had also beaten Brause in the two teams' first meeting earlier this month. The decisive final match was forced when two Duke players avenged previous defeats to their Tiger opponents. At No. 1 singles, Doug Root, ranked 37th in the country, upset No. 22 Clemson senior Mitch Sprengelmeyer. Root has struggled recently, and quickly fell behind Sunday, getting broken in his the first game of the match and trailing 3-1 after four games. Though visibly frustrated during his last few matches, the freshman seemed to channel his anger into his play, blowing Sprengelmeyer away with his serve and ground strokes to take a 7-5, 6-3 victory.
"I've been starting kind of slow the last couple of times, so I didn't want to get back into that same path," Root said. "I tried to get my feet going a little bit more and I guess it worked."
At No. 3 singles, Dmitry Muzyka, who had been Duke's top player until a stress fracture in his foot sidelined him for almost two-and-a-half months, defeated the Tigers' Ken Wasserman, 6-3, 6-4. Muzyka and his partner Sebastien Gobbi won all three of their doubles matches on the weekend. Muzyka's normal doubles partner, Sven Koehler, with whom he was ranked second in the nation before both were injured in February, should return from his fractured left wrist in time for next month's NCAA Regionals.
"Dmitry's been having some arm problems, [but] he's getting there," Lapidus said on Saturday. "Now he seems about 90 percent. In doubles he's 100 percent. He was really playing well [today]."
On Sunday the Blue Devils lost the doubles point, as Root and Jordan Wile-the No. 6 tandem in the nation-fell behind 5-0 and eventually lost 8-3 to the 32nd-ranked duo of Li and Sprengelmeyer. Muzyka and Gobbi won their match 8-5 over Theo Nato and Wasserman, but at No. 2 doubles Adam Gusky and Porter Jones couldn't overcome Ryan Bauer and Pablo Bellagamba's late break, losing 8-6. Jones and Gusky both were defeated in singles, by Bauer and Nato, respectively. Wile beat Bellagamba at No. 5 singles, winning 6-1, 6-1 for the second straight day.
Duke reached the finals by knocking out eighth-seeded N.C. State 4-1 on Friday and fifth-seeded Virginia 5-0 on Saturday.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.