All good things must come to an end, and Duke's home win streak did Wednesday afternoon against No. 11 Wake Forest at the Ambler Tennis Stadium.
The No. 16 Blue Devils (11-7, 4-2 in the ACC) had won all seven matches they had played at Ambler and the Sheffield Indoor Tennis Center this season, but were unable to overcome the Demon Deacons-the highest-ranked team to visit Duke so far.
"They are pretty solid and I think we could have won, but a couple of close breaks just didn't go our way," freshman Dylan Arnould said.
Wednesday's match started poorly for the Blue Devils, as the team dropped the always-important doubles point. After having earned the point Sunday against Miami, Duke lost all three doubles matches 8-5 to go down right away.
Wake Forest (18-3, 4-2 in the ACC) carried its winning ways into singles play, with Todd Paul, the sixth-ranked player in the country, beating the Blue Devils' Joey Atas in straight sets to put his team up 2-0.
The teams then split the next two matches, as Duke's Peter Rodrigues won 6-4, 6-2 as the third seed and Kiril Dimitrov went down in a tightly-contested 7-6, 7-5 match.
In the decisive match of the day, between the Blue Devils' David Goulet and Wake's Mariusz Adamski, Goulet dropped the first set 6-4 but then roared back to easily take the second 6-2. Finally, Adamski pulled out the victory in a third-set tiebreak 7-6 (8-6) to clinch the match for the Demon Deacons at 4-2.
"Goulet had a really tough match, and we just came up a little short in the late matches," Arnould said.
The loss snaps Duke's four-game winning streak, and the Blue Devils will get a chance to start a new one Friday afternoon against Boston College at Ambler.
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