Henrique Cunha and Reid Carleton embarked upon a brilliant run in their first season as doubles partners, rising all the way to the top of the rankings toward the end of conference play.
But despite being the No. 1 tandem in the NCAA doubles championship, the pair couldn’t overcome Virginia’s top doubles team Saturday, falling 6-4, 6-7 (6-8), 6-3 to the Cavaliers’ Michael Shabaz and Drew Courtney, the eventual champions of the doubles tournament. The pair of Cunha and Carleton ended the season with a 41-6 record, including an impressive 22-2 mark in dual matches.
“Anytime you lose, it is tough, but when you look at the full body of work for those guys it is pretty amazing,” head coach Ramsey Smith said. “They had a great run in the NCAA Tournament and even though it ended earlier than they hoped they were playing great tennis.”
Cunha and Carleton had played the Cavaliers’ No. 1 doubles team three times prior during ACC play and the postseason. Duke won the first match 8-6, and the ACC and NCAA tournament matches were abandoned when Virginia clinched the doubles point, although both were headed to or already in tiebreaks. The fourth meeting between the two pairings proved to be equally tightly contested.
Virginia went up a break on Cunha’s serve at 2-2 in the first set after an hour-long rain delay. The Cavaliers took adavantage and held serve to take a 4-2 lead. The two teams traded serve the rest of the set, giving the Cavaliers a 1-0 advantage.
The Blue Devils came back stronger in the second set, but again failed to break the Cavaliers’ service, leading to a tiebreaker. In the tiebreaker, Virginia seemed poised for a straight-set victory, with double match point at 6-4, but Cunha and Carleton fought back to win four consecutive points and tie the match up at one set apiece.
“Virginia served really well and got up a set,” Smith said. “We didn’t break in the second but forced a tiebreaker, and after UVA played great to get up 6-4 in the tiebreaker our guys played two amazing points to save match points. They gave themselves a chance by winning the second set.”
In the decisive set, Shabaz and Courtney once again broke Cunha’s serve to go up 3-1. The Blue Devils were on the verge of breaking back in the next game, up 40-love, but the Cavaliers reeled off five consecutive points to hold serve and carried that momentum to break Carleton in the next game and take a commanding 5-1 lead in the third set. Duke then broke Courtney for the first time to extend the match, but Shabaz held serve for the win.
Cunha, the overall No. 1 seed in the individual tournament, failed to recover from the defeat, also bowing out in the singles semifinals the next day to the eventual champion, Stanford’s Bradley Klahn. The 6-2, 6-2 loss ended the freshman’s 24-match winning streak and prevented a storybook ending to a record-setting season in which Cunha captured ACC and National Rookie of the Year honors as well as ACC Player of the Year.
Cunha never found a rhythm in the semifinals. He led 1-0 and had break point on Klahn—the 2009 National Rookie of the Year—in the first set, but play stopped due to weather. When the match resumed, Klahn took control of his serve and broke Cunha twice to win the first set. The second set was more of same as the Cardinal sophomore broke Cunha twice more to punch his ticket to the final.
The Brazilian freshman ended the season with 39 wins, the most in school history.
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