After a successful pair of matches at home, the Blue Devils look ahead to a another weekend of conference play—this time on the road.
No. 4 Duke will square off against Clemson Friday at
2:30 p.m. and then travel to Charlottesville, Va., to play No. 8 Virginia—the only undefeated ACC team remaining—Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m. The Blue Devils’ most recent away match came March 8 with a loss to Virginia Tech, but the squad holds an overall record of 3-1 away from Durham.
“It’s been a little while since we’ve been on the road, but it’s nice,” Duke head coach Ramsey Smith said. “We’ve played well on the road this year as well...and it’s always nice to play in some hostile environments—it’s good for the guys.”
The Tigers (10-9, 1-4 in the ACC) welcome the Blue Devils to Clemson, S.C., as the first of four straight conference matches at home. Clemson enters Friday off a staggering 6-1 loss to Florida State, managing to clinch the doubles point before falling at every position in singles play. The Tigers will look to gain momentum early from strong doubles play, as the squad has won the doubles point in all but one of its five conference matches.
Duke (16-2, 3-1) surrendered the doubles point in its most recent match Sunday against Wake Forest. Despite a Blue Devil win on court two, the court one duo of Nicolas Alvarez and Raphael Hemmeler—ranked 11th nationally—lost their second match in a row before Chris Mengel and Bruno Semenzato suffered their first conference loss of the season to put Duke down 1-0 in the match. Although the Blue Devils managed to pull off the 4-3 win against the Demon Deacons, getting an early advantage Friday would help shift momentum into Duke’s favor.
“We split our doubles points this past weekend, and it’s certainly been a focus for us this week,” Smith said. “We’re just trying to get a little bit better at every position.”
The Blue Devils have historically dominated the Tigers, claiming the seven most recent matchups and winning the last four via 7-0 shutouts. But with the impending contest against the Cavaliers looming in the wake of Friday’s match, the team could easily become distracted and overlook an otherwise relatively unthreatening opponent.
“The biggest thing is that we’re fully focused on [Clemson],” Smith said. “It’s a big weekend—obviously Virginia’s on Sunday, and it’s easy to get excited for that match—but we’re just taking one match at a time and making sure we’re ready for Clemson. They have some good players, and they’re going to be tough—especially at their place.”
After Friday’s match, it can set its sights on one of its toughest matches of the season. Virginia (12-3, 5-0) boasts two singles players in the nation’s top 10 and five in the top 125. The Cavaliers’ last conference loss came April 23, 2006, against the Blue Devils in the ACC tournament. Since then, Virginia has emerged victorious in all 13 matches against Duke—not to mention every other conference opponent.
“They’ve been the standard in the ACC for awhile,” Smith said. “They’ve been the team to beat—they haven’t been beaten in the ACC for awhile—and they’ve got another great team this year. I think they’re one of the top three teams in the country, and it’s going to be a fun challenge, but I think we’re certainly prepared this year—we’ve got the players—and we’re looking forward to a fun match.”
In last season’s episode, the Blue Devils dropped three singles matches in a row before junior Josh Levine gave his team hope with a three-set defeat of Justin Shane. The Cavaliers won the final two matches, both decided by final-set tiebreakers, leaving the match decided in Virginia’s favor with no reason to enter doubles competition.
Duke’s lineup Sunday will likely feature four players who competed in last year’s match against Virginia—Levine, Semenzato, Hemmeler and Jason Tahir. One member of the lineup who is guaranteed a first glimpse at the Cavalier squad is No. 11 Nicolas Alvarez. The freshman holds a 10-2 record in dual competition but has played in just two conference matches all season.
“Nico’s the new guy in the lineup. Everything’s new for him, and he’s doing a pretty good job against players he doesn’t know,” Smith said. “Other than him, we’re a very veteran team, and we face Virginia one, two, sometimes three times a year, so we know their players—they’re really tough—and it’ll be a good challenge.”
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