The Blue Devils pushed the Hokies to the limit Friday, hoping the visitors would blink. But Virginia Tech never did.
The Hokies defeated Duke 5-2 after nearly three hours of play Friday afternoon at Ambler Tennis Stadium. The Blue Devils took an early lead in both singles and doubles but could not withstand the Hokies’ relentlessness, losing their second contest to the ACC foe in as many seasons. Half of the sets played were decided by a margin of two games or less in a contest that could have swung either way.
“Congrats to Virginia Tech. They’re a veteran team, and they stepped up in moments,” Duke head coach Ramsey Smith said. It came down to a couple big moments—ends of sets, ends of matches—and they were just a little bit better than us”
The Hokies (12-4, 4-2 in the ACC) clinched the match on court one with the day’s score at 3-1, but senior Josh Levine staged a comeback on court five in the final singles match to earn his team a second point to earn some consolation for the Blue Devils.
After dropping the first set 2-6, the Syosset, N.Y., native fought back to claim a 5-4 lead in the second set and won the next game to force a third set. The final frame of the match proved to be the closest, ending in a tiebreaker that Levine managed to win by two points, 9-7.
“Josh put himself in a serious hole several times,” Smith said. “He literally just found a way to win—it wasn’t pretty—but it was really nice to see him for his confidence…. That’s going to help him move forward toward the end of the ACC season.”
At the start of the day, Duke (8-10, 2-4) appeared ready to avenge last season’s 6-1 loss in Blacksburg, Va., racing to leads on all three doubles courts. The court three duo of Daniel McCall and Jason Lapidus won 6-3, but Virginia Tech quickly evened the score, as seventh-ranked pair Andreas Bjerrehus and Joao Monteiro took down Nicolas Alvarez and Ryan Dickerson 6-2 on court one to remain undefeated in conference action through five matches.
The fight for the decisive doubles point played out on court two, where the match was deadlocked at 4-4 and again at 5-5. Virginia Tech's Edoardo Tessaro and Amerigo Contini then held serve and broke freshman Catalin Mateas to earn a narrow 7-5 win and give the Hokies a 1-0 advantage, setting the nail-biting tone that carried into singles.
“It came down to [court] two there, and five-all, and we played really well and just came up a little bit short,” Smith said. “We haven’t won a whole lot of doubles points, but I thought we gave ourselves a chance and put ourselves in position with the singles, but we couldn’t quite finish.”
No. 19 Alvarez and No. 21 Monteiro battled on court one in an exhausting singles match that finished 7-6 (7-5), 6-4, in Monteiro's favor. After a first set that lasted an hour and 20 minutes, the Blue Devil sophomore found himself on the wrong side of a 7-6 score, but Alvarez stayed composed against the Hokie senior, battling Monteiro’s fast pace with strategic ball placement all over the court.
“It was a very, very physical match. [Freshman Vincent Lin] was up 3- or 4-0 in the third [set on court three], and they were still at 6-5 in the first set, so long, physical points,” Smith said. “I think if [Alvarez] had been able to win that fist set, that would have been able to change momentum—not only on his court but everywhere else.”
Monteiro proved tougher on the day, hammering out a 6-4 win to close the book on the Hokie win with his team already up 3-1. The match also marked revenge for the Porto, Portugal, native, who fell to Alvarez in three sets in October.
“Monteiro’s had a heck of a senior year, and it was physical, grind-it-out tennis,” Smith said. “Nico was really, really close to taking out his legs and just couldn’t quite get the break in the second set.”
Duke’s only other team point came on court three, where Lin looked ready to put away his opponent the way he did in his most recent ACC matchup, a 6-2, 6-1 win against Boston College’s Jeff Melvin. Lin managed a shutout 6-0 first set, but Contini came back to win the second 6-2 and force a third set.
Lin recovered from his second-set debacle and took a 3-0 lead in the final frame while Alvarez and Monteiro were still locked in their first-set battle. The Schaumburg, Ill., native erased all memory of the second set as he downed Contini 6-2 and moved the dual match score to 2-1, leaving the Blue Devils with a chance to come back.
But Duke suffered another tight loss on court four. At first, T.J. Pura matched Lin game-for-game on as the two looked ready to clinch two easy points for the Blue Devils to open singles play. But No. 72 Tessaro won five of the next six games to gain a 6-5 advantage in the first set.
“We talked to the guys [after the match] about really just trusting in themselves in the big moments and we just haven’t really pulled through in a lot of tight situations this year,” Smith said. “It’s one of those things where it’s kind of snowballed on us, and you really need to have that belief to do it before you can actually do it.”
Pura managed to push the set to a tiebreak and won 7-2, holding onto a much-needed first set 7-6 as the momentum had shifted to Virginia Tech’s favor on courts one, two, and five. But Pura could not hold off the Uggiate Trevano, Italy, native for long, and Tessaro won the next two sets 6-3, 6-1, dealing Pura his first conference loss on court four this season.
No. 74 Bjerrehus then bested Mateas 7-5, 6-3, on court two, and Aaron Gomez—the only player to sit out doubles for Virginia Tech—defeated McCall 6-4, 7-5, to round out the day and give the Hokies two more matches decided by only a handful of points.
“They’re really good players. They’re very under-ranked—I feel like they haven’t quite had as many opportunities yet against the top, top teams,” Smith said. “But they’re a top-15, top-20 team, and they were just a little bit better in the big moments.”
Duke returns to the courts Sunday for a double-header against Louisville at noon followed by a rescheduled match from January against N.C. Central at 5 p.m. The Cardinals have not won a conference match yet but arrive in Durham after two straight wins against Illinois State and Tennessee Tech.
“We’ll get back to work, practice tomorrow at 10:00, and prepare for a really young, new Louisville team,” Smith said. “Everyone in the ACC is tough, and our most important match of the year is Sunday.”
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.