After dropping three consecutive matches, the men's tennis team desperately needed a tonic. And with home matches against No. 16 Texas Christian and No. 23 Notre Dame looming this weekend, they needed that tonic sooner rather than later.
Dropping the doubles point to open Saturday's match against No. 16 Texas Christian (11-3), however, wasn't what the Blue Devils had in mind.
But staring down the possibility of a fourth consecutive loss, Duke responded emphatically in singles play. Senior Doug Root got the ball rolling with a straight-set victory at No. 2 singles and his team never looked back.
The fifth-ranked Blue Devils (11-4) took five of the six singles matches to claim a 5-2 win against the Horned Frogs and carried the momentum to Sunday, overpowering the Fighting Irish (9-7) 6-1 to sweep their weekend homestand at Duke Tennis Stadium.
"[The wins were] huge," junior Ramsey Smith said. "We were really on a slide there for awhile. We were playing really good teams, but anytime you lose three matches in a row, you just kind of walk on the court, it's always in the back of your head.
"We didn't play that bad, we were just playing great teams. We had good opportunities for wins, but we just didn't get them. This definitely builds your confidence."
Freshman Joel Spicher followed up Root's victory Saturday with a straight-set win of his own to give Duke a 2-1 lead. After TCU's top gun Esteban Carril, ranked No. 4 in the country, handed Smith his fourth singles loss in a row to knot the match at two points apiece, the Blue Devils reclaimed the lead with some help from an unlikely source.
Yorke Allen, making only his fourth appearance of the season in singles action, slipped past Jimmy Haney at No. 6 singles, 7-6, 6-4. Marko Cerenko then clinched the match for Duke by winning a second-set tiebreaker 7-3 in his match at No. 5 singles.
"When we played over break, we were playing arguably the top two teams in the country," said head coach Jay Lapidus of his team's recent struggles. "They're two great teams, and you're playing at their place. It's just nice to get back to our home setting."
Duke kept the home cooking coming Sunday, sweeping all three doubles matches to claim its first doubles point in more than two weeks. Highlighting Duke's play in doubles action was a dominant win by the unlikely tandem of Spicher and Pedro Escudero at No. 3 doubles.
Spicher, who made only his third appearance in doubles play and his first since early February, teamed up with Escudero, who is still on mend from an elbow injury, to breeze past Aaron Talarico and Matt Daly 8-3.
"There's a lot of maturity on the court when those two guys play together-there's a lot of experience," Lapidus said. "They're good friends and I liked the way that looked."
Lapidus probably liked the way his players looked in singles action as well. Spicher, Cerenko and Allen had little problem with their opponents at the three lower singles slots, winning each of their respective matches in straight sets.
The most competitive match of the day came at No. 3 singles, where Andres Pedroso and Daly locked up in a duel between two baseliners. Both players broke serve once in the first set before engaging in a tiebreaker.
Pedroso staked a 4-1 lead after Daly committed four unforced errors in the tiebreak's first five points. With Daly looking to reclaim the edge, Pedroso outlasted Daly in a 20-stroke rally to claim an insurmountable 5-1 lead. Fittingly, Pedroso wrapped up the set when a lob from Daly sailed long, completing a tiebreak that saw Pedroso winning every point on a Daly error.
Riding the momentum of his first set win, Pedroso cruised in the second set, routing Daly 6-1.
"Andres has done a good job," Lapidus said. "He's just been having some real close matches. But this was a good weekend for him, he came through with a couple of wins for us-it should help his confidence."
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