Duke was the higher seed, but buoyed by a rowdy home crowd in Palo Alto, Calif., Stanford was not ready to bow out of the NCAA Championships Sunday.
Though the match was much closer than final score appeared, the fifth ranked Blue Devils (22-7) were upset, 4-0, by the Cardinal (18-4) in the round of 16.
"That was definitely the loudest crowd we played against," assistant coach Ramsey Smith said. "It didn't have a negative effect on us, but they thrived off of it."
After dropping the doubles point, fourth-seeded Duke lost three straight-set singles matches to give No. 13 Stanford the sweep.
The top doubles pair of senior Jonathan Stokke and junior Joey Atas, ranked 17th nationally, was dominated by the Cardinal, 8-1. Stokke, who also lost a tough match in singles, was hampered by a groin injury he sustained earlier in the tournament.
"I played really badly," Stokke said. "I was really tentative on my leg and didn't realize how much movement was a part of my game until [Saturday]."
The quick loss put pressure on Duke's remaining doubles teams to come out with victories, Smith said. The No. 2 duo of senior Stephen Amritraj and sophomore Peter Rodrigues, fell, 8-5, to give Stanford the crucial first point.
"The doubles point is always huge this deep in the tournament," Smith said. "I think that taking the doubles point could've taken the sails out of [Stanford's] wind, but they got a lot of momentum from doubles and I feel that they carried it right into singles."
Down 1-0 heading into singles, the Blue Devils dropped five of their first six sets to the Cardinal. At the No. 2, 3 and 4 positions, Duke's Stokke, Peter Rodrigues and Atas, respectively, lost in straight sets to give Stanford the winning margin.
"They just stayed solid through every position," head coach Jay Lapidus said. "They were sound throughout their lineup, they won in doubles, and they have the home court-it all adds up to them being pretty tough."
The three unfinished singles contests, however, could have gone Duke's way, Smith said.
Top-seeded senior Ludovic Walter and freshman Kiril Dimitrov were among the five Blue Devils to lose their first sets in singles, but each was up a break in the second set when the match concluded.
"Ludo had a bunch of chances in the first set that he let slip away, but too little too late," Smith said. "The 4-0 match could potentially have been a 4-3 match."
Walter's career at Duke is not over as he has advanced into the second round of the NCAA singles tournament.
Amritraj, who played the fifth singles position, was up 6-4, 4-1 when Stanford notched the fourth point against Atas, 6-4, 6-3.
Duke ends its season with a 22-7 record. The starting lineup will suffer the loss of three seniors, including Walter, who is fifth-ranked individual nationally.
The Blue Devils, however, are confident in their return for next year's competition after handing 4-3 and 5-2 defeats to Baylor and Texas-two Final Four teams-respectively. Duke also gave Pepperdine, which won the NCAA Championship Tuesday, a tough fight in the regular season.
"It shows there's just a real parity in college tennis," Smith said. "We can beat anybody on any day. Maybe we used up our luck at the ACC tournament, but that's how it goes and I think we could make another run at it next year."
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