It was a weekend of fighting for the Blue Devils at Sheffield Indoor Tennis Center, as the Fighting Illini and the Fighting Irish visited Durham for dual matches. No. 10 Duke defeated both of those teams and captured a third victory over N.C. Central to move to 6-0 in dual-match play.
Friday’s opponent was No. 19 Illinois (4-2), and the Blue Devils’ 7-0 victory was their first over the Fighting Illini in 10 years.
“It was a really good team win,” head coach Ramsey Smith said. “[Illinois] is a team that has given us some problems for a bunch of years now…. One of the things that we really stressed last week was handling adversity. That is one thing that I think we did really well.”
In doubles play, David Holland and Chris Mengel took the first win, and Henrique Cunha and Fred Saba soon followed suit to give Duke the doubles point. The Blue Devils carried that momentum into singles play, where freshmen Raphael Hemmeler and Jason Tahir struck swiftly to put Duke up 3-0.
“I was really pleased with the freshmen,” Smith said. “Both of them stepped up and got off the court quickly.”
On court one, seventh-ranked Cunha captured an upset victory over No. 2 Dennis Nevolo.
Cunha lost his first set 7-5 but never lost his confidence, winning his second set 6-1 to take the match into a tiebreaker. The tiebreaker remained close throughout, but Cunha came up on top with a 10-7 victory, earning the seventh and final point of the match.
“[Nevolo] is a great player,” Cunha said. “It’s always a tough match, always a three-set match. I started the second set breaking him, and that was very good momentum.”
The team also was able to gain momentum from a crowd of over 675 fans, the largest of the season.
“The crowd was awesome,” Smith said. “I think the guys really fed off the crowd, especially at the end of doubles. And then midway through the singles, I just felt like the crowd gave us a boost there.”
After a day off Saturday, Duke took on Notre Dame (5-3) and N.C. Central (0-1) in a doubleheader.
The Blue Devils defeated the Fighting Irish 6-1 for their first win of the day.
Cunha and Saba came up with another victory in doubles play, but Holland and Mengel could not repeat their winning ways, falling 8-5 to Notre Dame’s Greg Andrews and Spencer Talmadge. That left the doubles point in the hands of Torsten Wietoska and Raphael Hemmeler, who pulled out an 8-6 victory.
Notre Dame was able to tie the score at one, as Sam Keeton came away with a quick victory over Saba to open the singles play.
It was not long before the Blue Devils were able to regain the lead, though, as Cunha posted a 6-1, 6-2 victory at No. 1 singles over Casey Watt.
Wietoska, Hemmeler, and Chris Mengel would follow with two-set victories, and Tahir came out on top of a third-set tiebreaker to give Duke their sixth point.
The Blue Devils continued to dominate their home court against N.C. Central later in the day, with several Duke players bringing home their second wins of the day as the Blue Devils shut out the Eagles.
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