If Florida State seniors Gustav Bucht and Jeff Scarella were looking for a Cinderella ending to Senior Day in Tallahassee, they probably should have known better. They had not been able to defeat the Blue Devils in their four years. In fact, no one has.
In the Seminoles' regular season ACC finale, the team suffered the same fate as Duke's 49 previous ACC opponents--a loss to the 11th-ranked Blue Devils.
The match marks the end of a rigorous week for the Blue Devils, who defeated North Carolina Wednesday before losing to Florida Friday.
"We're tired, we just need a few days off--it's a long season," coach Jay Lapidus said after Sunday's win over the Seminoles. "Our last few matches have been rough. I'm just happy our guys came through [Sunday] and played well."
Duke (14-10, 7-0 in the ACC) opened up its 5-2 victory over Florida State (13-9, 4-4) by taking the doubles point in only 45 minutes, winning both fully completed matches. The tandem of sophomore Phillip King and junior Michael Yani overwhelmed Seminoles Xavier Luscan and Scarella, 8-1. Blue Devil freshman Jason Zimmerman, recently named ACC co-player of the week, and partner junior Alex Bose followed suit with an 8-6 victory.
In singles action, the Blue Devils won two of their three matches in straight sets, while Yani defeated the Seminoles' Mat Cloer in three.
In the contest's premier matchup, Luscan, ranked 38th by ITA, took Duke's 11th-ranked King to a first-set tie break before the Blue Devil won the second by a 6-1 count.
After Yani gave Duke a 3-0 lead, Florida State's Roman Jurd defeated Zimmerman in three sets to keep the Seminoles' quickly fading hopes alive.
Peter Shults moved up one spot to No. 5 due to Joel Spicher's sore shoulder, but lost a difficult match to Florida State's Chip Webb, 6-2, 6-2.
"Joel had a sore shoulder, so he sat out the singles," Lapidus said. "Peter slid up to the No. 5 spot. Peter had two incredible matches Wednesday and Friday. He was just sort of out of gas, so he just didn't play his best."
Yorke Allen ended any doubts of a Blue Devil victory by easily disposing of Bucht, 6-3, 7-5. The win clinched the victory for Duke, which now heads into the ACC championships in Raleigh Thursday undefeated in the conference for the sixth consecutive year.
The win over the Seminoles came after a heartbreaking loss to No. 15 Florida on Friday in Gainesville, Fla. The Gators (14-5) stormed out to an early 3-0 lead following wins at both No. 3 and No. 5 singles. The Blue Devils garnered their first win at No. 6 when Shults came back from one set down to defeat Ross Greenstein in three.
Despite needing four match points to close out his victory, 11th-ranked King brought Duke back to within one after a strong finish over Florida's Hamid Mirzadeh, ranked 122nd nationally, 6-7 (1), 6-2, 6-2.
Duke continued to hold off the Gators when Yani gained a service break leading 5-4 in the third set and subsequently closed out his match against Florida's Eleazar Magallan, 7-5, 5-7, 6-4. The victory knotted the match at four, with just Spicher remaining on the court playing the Gators' Troy Hahn. After dropping the first set 6-4, Spicher battled back to tie the match at one set apiece, winning the second 6-3. With the third set tied at four games apiece, Spicher broke Hahn's serve to go up 5-4.
Facing an amazing comeback attempt by the Blue Devils, Hahn won two match points over Spicher to tie the set again at 5-5. After both players held their serve, Spicher won the opening point of the tiebreaker before Hahn won five consecutive points. Hahn eventually closed out the match with a 7-2 tiebreaker victory, and a 4-3 Florida win.
"I think we just didn't play our best," Lapidus said of Friday's match. "We were just a little fatigued, maybe a little tired from that UNC match. I don't think we played our best match against Florida. We tried hard, but maybe mentally we were a little bit tired."
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