Pointing to the crowd and mimicking Tiger Woods’ signature fist pump, Stephen Amritraj walked off the court following his team’s victory and doused himself in beer. The birthday boy, enjoying his first legal day of drinking, then celebrated the Blue Devils’ narrow victory with his teammates.
“I can’t believe we pulled this one out,” Amritraj said. “It seemed like we won through smoke and mirrors.”
The junior’s celebration came after his thrilling victory, along with comebacks by two of his teammates, led Duke to a 5-2 win.
With five matches in progress, No. 4 Duke (13-2, 3-0 in the ACC) was in danger of losing its first match in conference play. No. 27 Florida State (12-6, 3-2) was ahead 2-0 and had two matches in control, needing only two victories to win.
After triumphs by Peter Rodrigues and Peter Shults evened the match at two, three Duke wins in a five-minute stretch completed the improbable finish.
“This was one of the better matches I’ve been involved in,” head coach Jay Lapidus said. “We were on the ropes all over and until the last three or four minutes, I thought FSU was in control and was going to win.”
Amritraj had just lost a second-set tiebreaker and was knotted with his opponent at 2-2 when he went on to win his next four games and claim Duke’s third victory. Leading for the first time, the Blue Devils needed just one victory from either Ludovic Walter or freshman Charles Brezac to extend their winning streak to eight.
The nation’s No. 5 Walter trailed No. 26 Mat Cloer 5-3 in the third and deciding set of the top-flight matchup. The junior, however, broke his opponent’s serve and won in a hard-fought and emotion-filled tiebreaker that clinched Duke’s victory.
“Mat Cloer is a very good player, and we’ve always had a lot of trouble with him,” Lapidus said. “With Ludovic down 5-3, I thought he was going to do it to us again. Ludovic just showed what a great player he was and won a 30-40 shot rally and regained all of the momentum.”
Moments after Walter’s triumph, Brezac finished off his opponent and gave Duke its deceivingly decisive 5-2 win.
The freshman was trailing 4-3 in the third set, but he also mounted a comeback and won the third set 7-5.
In addition to the classic win over the Seminoles, Duke also downed No. 33 Virginia Commonwealth. Duke topped VCU 6-1 Friday afternoon, winning the top five singles matches as well as the doubles point. Walter and Amritraj played in the only closely-contested matches, but both emerged with three-set victories. Walter knocked off No. 11 Arnaud Lecloerec, 7-5, and Amritraj needed a tiebreaker to notch his victory, which he won, 7-5.
Duke kept its lineup mostly consistent during the weekend, only swapping Amritraj and Jonathan Stokke at the two and three seeds, respectively, for the FSU match. Stokke had struggled in previous outings against the opponent he was scheduled to face, and Lapidus said he wanted to avoid that matchup again.
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