Don't blame the men's tennis team if it doesn't worry too much about slow starts.
For the second time in three matches, the Blue Devils fell behind early after dropping the doubles point. But down 1-0 heading into singles play, Duke rebounded with a vengeance, again.
The fifth-ranked Blue Devils swept the matches at the top five singles spots to claim an easy 5-2 win against Wake Forest (8-8, 1-4 in the ACC) at Leighton Tennis Stadium in Winston-Salem yesterday.
The Blue Devils (12-4, 2-0) have not lost an ACC match since losing the 1997 ACC Championship match to Clemson, a streak that spans 19 matches.
"I don't think anyone on our team doubted we were going to win the match," junior Andres Pedroso said. "I wasn't worried at all."
Despite the return of freshman Michael Yani, out since being struck in the eye by a ball during a match against UCLA two weeks ago, Duke dropped the doubles point for the fifth time in the last six matches.
Paired with Pedroso, Yani looked sharp in his return to action at No. 2 doubles. But Wake's Michael Murray and Johan Hansen looked a bit sharper, dropping Pedroso and Yani 8-6 in the decisive doubles match after the two teams had split at No. 1 and No. 3.
"He was pretty good considering it was his first match," Pedroso said. "He looked as good as you could look for not playing for two weeks.
"We pretty much came out flat at the beginning. Mike and I should have won-we had a lot of chances.... We haven't been 100 percent intense through the doubles."
Although Duke took five of the six singles matches, the wins did not come easily. Pedroso and freshman Joel Spicher cruised past their respective opponents to give Duke a 2-1 lead. Three of the other four matches went into a decisive third set.
Marko Cerenko outlasted Justin Kaufman in the closest match of the day at No. 5 singles to put Duke within one match of the win.
And Ramsey Smith didn't wait long to clinch it.
After dropping the second set of his match at No. 2 singles, the Hilton Head, S.C. native came out blistering in the decisive set. Smith blitzed Michael Berger by taking the first 20 points of the set to go up 5-0, and eventually winning 6-1.
"That's almost unheard of in tennis," Pedroso said.
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