Duke faced its toughest competition of the season last weekend, going 2-1 against three of the top eight teams in the country at the ITA National Team Indoor Championship.
The No. 10 Blue Devils (10-1) started match play with No. 8 UCLA (10-1) Friday and battled their way to a tough 4-2 victory. For only the second time this season, Duke gave up the doubles point in two tiebreakers after all three matches were forced into tiebreaks. The No. 1 team of Henrique Cunha and Fred Saba suffered its first loss of the season to Nick Meister and Adrien Puget in a close 7-5 tiebreak contest, while the team of Chris Mengel and David Holland also fell 7-4. Torsten Wiestioka and Raphael Hemmeler were the only doubles team to prevail that night for the Blue Devils, rallying for a 7-5 victory.
“I felt like we played well in three doubles tiebreakers against UCLA and couldn’t come out on top,” head coach Ramsey Smith said. “Having said that, we did a great job rebounding after losing the doubles point.”
Duke went on to dominate singles play, winning the first sets on five of the six courts. Cunha, Hemmeler, Torsten Wietoska, and Jason Tahir all notched victories to seal a 4-2 Duke win.
Following Friday’s upset win, the Blue Devils went on to play top-ranked Southern California (10-0) in Saturday’s quarterfinals. The Trojans jumped out to a quick start and never looked back, quickly taking the doubles point before their six singles players—who each rank in the top 90 nationwide—took control. Unlike the match against UCLA, Duke dropped all six first sets and went on to lose at the third and fourth singles positions closing out a victory for the No. 1 seed in the tournament.
“We just need to continue to work on the doubles and working on winning that point more times than not against the top teams,” Smith said.
In the consolation round Sunday, the Blue Devils faced No. 5 Florida, a team they beat 4-1 in last year’s ITA quarterfinals. Once again, Duke prevailed, sweeping Florida 4-0.
“We had a tough call on our resiliency because we hadn’t lost yet,” said Smith, “and today was a huge test of that. We came through with flying colors and I am very happy with where we are at right now.”
No one dropped a set against the Gators, and the Blue Devils’ top two players, Cunha and Mengel, remain undefeated in dual match singles play.
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