Before No. 14 Duke took the court in its NCAA tournament second-round match with No. 17 Alabama Saturday, the Blue Devils appeared very relaxed, focusing during warm-ups but also joking around and encouraging one another.
That experienced attitude translated to an emotional doubles win for the team (16-10), but emotion came up short in singles play as Duke's NCAA run ended with a 4-3 loss to the Crimson Tide (22-7).
"It was as exciting of a college tennis match as you can have," assistant coach Ramsey Smith said. "But obviously, it was really disappointing and not the way you want to end the season."
Doubles play was problematic at times for the Blue Devils this season, but all three combinations worked to perfection against Alabama.
The second-seeded pairing of Dylan Arnould and Ned Samuelson jumped out to a 5-0 lead against their opponents en route to securing an 8-4 win. Duke's No. 3 seed of Kiril Dimitrov and Peter Rodrigues led 4-1 and looked to be cruising to victory.
Alabama, however, fought back to tie the two remaining matches and looked to have enough momentum to push them over the top.
Rodrigues and Dimitrov were able to break the Crimson Tide's serve while up 7-6, though, earning the doubles point for the Blue Devils. And Joey Atas and David Goulet, who were on serve with their opponents throughout their match, finally broke the serve of Alabama's top pair with the match tied at 7-7.
"That was one of the better doubles points we've played this year," Arnould said. "Everyone was really fired up and ready to go, and we've been getting it going pretty well lately."
In contrast, the Blue Devils came out flat in singles play. The Crimson Tide won the first set played in every match except one, against second-seeded Atas. In the second set, play was stopped due to rain and later resumed in the Sheffield Indoor Tennis Center.
Unfortunately, the end of rain delay did not mark the end of Duke's woes. Goulet was forced to retire from his match with a severely sprained ankle. The junior's match was tied at one set apiece when it was called, giving the Tide a 2-1 lead.
"Anytime a teammate goes down, you worry about him," Smith said. "The air went out of our sails a little bit, and it's just an unfortunate thing you can't really control."
Later on, with the score tied at 3-3, all attention turned to the third set between Atas and Alabama's Joseph Jung. In the end, Jung did just enough to win 7-5 and send the Blue Devils home for good.
"It was pretty somber afterwards," Arnould said. "It's not that I can't believe we lost, but its just a little surprising. We felt bad for the seniors."
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