Dylan Arnould was laboring.
The senior had managed only one singles win in six prior ACC matches. His normally solid doubles pairing with David Holland had just lost for the first time in seven outings. And Arnould was locked in a grudge match on court four with Georgia Tech’s Miguel Muguruza, still grinding through his first set in the time it took teammates Reid Carleton and Henrique Cunha to claim their singles victories. He lost that first set in a tiebreaker, 7-4, one of only two Blue Devils to drop their opening set Saturday.
But as play wore on, Arnould finally started to find his rhythm.
He held serve in the second set and won the tiebreaker, 7-5. After the Yellow Jackets knotted the team score at three by winning No. 3 singles, Arnould finally started to create some separation by breaking Muguruza to go up 3-1. From then on, he breezed through the third set while his Georgia Tech counterpart cramped up, winning 6-7, 7-6, 6-2 to give No. 20 Duke the victory.
“It felt great,” Arnould said. “We’ve been winning a lot and I’ve been losing, which is fine, but I’m just glad that when I actually needed to win for us to win, I won.”
“[Dylan’s] been struggling, but the guy stepped up huge today,” assistant coach Josh Goffi said. “That’s a big match, and this will be a turning point for the rest of the season. He’ll get some confidence from this, and having ‘D’ on track is going to be huge for us. We’ll have a solid one through six at that point.”
It took a complete effort for the Blue Devils (14-6, 7-1 in the ACC) to put away the No. 24 Yellow Jackets Saturday at Ambler Stadium. Georgia Tech (15-4, 6-2) came out firing in doubles, staking out early leads at No. 2 and No. 3 and winning both, 8-5. Duke’s No. 1 team of Cunha and Carleton held on, 9-8, for their 15th consecutive win, but the Blue Devils dropped the doubles point for the first time in conference play.
“We came out a little flat,” Goffi said. “[Georgia Tech] knew that we were talented and they needed to bring it. They stepped up and realized they had a challenge. That was a very talented doubles squad that they had.”
After losing the first point, Duke quickly changed the tide of the match in singles, winning the first set in four of the six matches.
Cunha and Carleton were dominant at Nos. 1 and 2, blazing through in straight sets to give the Blue Devils the lead. Cunha, the No. 11 singles player in the country, had no trouble against No. 4 Guillermo Gomez. With the win, he has now defeated each of the top four singles players in the country in his freshman season. Carleton also faced little resistance from his opponent, dropping only two games.
“Cunha’s been amazing all year. He refuses to lose no matter what,” Arnould said. “Reid’s been awesome—some really good wins—and he destroyed the guy today. Those two guys today, we wouldn’t have had a shot in singles if they hadn’t stepped up and beaten those guys like they did.”
In addition to Cunha and Carleton, sophomore Luke Marchese kept his undefeated conference record intact at court six to keep Duke ahead. Sophomore Torsten Wietoska had a chance to earn the team win but lost a third-set tiebreaker, paving the way for Arnould’s late heroics.
“We showed the fight of our team and we showed the heart of our team, which has been in question,” Goffi said. “Today, it just came out. Guys dug deep.... We deserved that win rather than a loss. I’m proud of our guys.”
The Blue Devils finished the weekend by breezing past Clemson (17-7, 3-6) at home, earning the first five points en route to a 5-2 victory. With the two wins, Duke jumped Georgia Tech for second place in the conference standings behind top-ranked Virginia.
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