A late start and a malfunctioning inflatable roof didn’t stop the Blue Devils from keeping their impressive play going Sunday, as they won their third straight match with a sweep.
Following their 11-0 victory against Coastal Carolina on Thursday, No. 17 Duke defeated VCU on the road 4-0 in its final match before the start of conference play.
“It was a really good match for us,” head coach Ramsey Smith said. “VCU is a tough team and they play especially well at home…. It’s definitely a really good win for us. That’s three matches in a row that we’ve swept, so I feel like we’re hitting our stride and getting confidence with each match.”
The Blue Devils (7-3) got off to a strong start, securing the doubles point as Raphael Hemmeler and Fred Saba took down the Rams’ Wilder Pimentel and Michael Voscek 8-3, and Daniel McCall and Cale Hammond defeated Alejandro Argente and JB Mateo 8-5.
Duke wasn’t able to win all three doubles matches, as the match between the 33rd-ranked duo of Michael Redlicki and Jason Tahir and Nick Jones and Vuk Velickovic of VCU ended with Redlicki and Tahir up two points in a tiebreak.
“I thought we started off really well with the doubles,” Smith said. “We got off to big leads on two courts and up a break on one, [which] was tough to match…. It was definitely a solid, solid doubles performance.”
Despite their tightly contested doubles match, both Redlicki and Tahir came out strong in singles, and were the first to win their singles matches to give the Blue Devils a 3-0 lead. No. 37 Redlicki took down Jones 7-5, 6-4 to improve his singles record to 4-1 on the season, and No. 40 Tahir beat No. 121 Voscek 6-3, 6-3.
Sophomore Bruno Semenzato sealed the victory for Duke with a 7-6, 6-2 victory against VCU’s Mateo.
Due to some malfunctions with the bubble the team played in, they were only able to play on four courts at a time. That combined with the match starting late due to a women’s match that ran longer than expected, the contest ended after Semenzato’s win, instead of finishing the remaining singles matches.
When Semenzato clinched the final point, Saba was up 5-3 in the third set of his match against Argente and Hemmeler was down 1-0 in his first set. Josh Levine, Duke’s sixth singles player, had just begun his first game.
“We just decided we were going to stop on the clinch,” Smith said. “[The first three matches] all finished at around the same time so Rapha, Josh were just in their first or second game. Since we decided ahead of time that we were going to stop with the clinch, they didn’t get to finish those matches.”
The Blue Devils may have won their last three matches convincingly, but their road gets much tougher, as they have their first conference matchup of the season, on the road against No. 24 N.C. State.
“N.C. State has the best team they’ve had in many years and they’re very good,” Smith said. “We’re starting off our ACC season with a bang. We’re just looking to get back to work on Tuesday, work hard this week, and prepare for a really tough match on Sunday.”
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