The Blue Devils hit the road this weekend for a pair of key ACC matches.
No. 11 Duke (14-7, 5-1 in the ACC) travels to Atlanta to face No. 18 Georgia Tech (15-2, 6-1) on Friday and then to Clemson (15-7, 2-5) on Sunday.
The main concerns for the Blue Devils will be stopping Yellow Jacket senior Guillermo Gomez and winning doubles matches, according to head coach Ramsey Smith.
“We’ve been focusing on doubles all week,” said Smith. “I think that’ll be the key this weekend. Their No. 1 doubles beat us in the fall, and we’re really looking forward to that rematch.”
Back in November, then-No. 1 Reid Carleton and Henrique Cunha fell to then-No. 43 Kevin King and Juan Spir of Georgia Tech 8-5 in the quarterfinals of the USTA/ITA National Indoor Championships. This weekend’s rematch will pit the No. 14 Yellow Jacket pair against the sixth-ranked duo of Carleton and Cunha.
Last weekend, Duke’s top doubles team split matches against Virginia and Virginia Tech, losing to the Cavaliers’ No. 2-ranked Drew Courtney and Michael Shabaz but bouncing back by defeating the Hokies’ Will Beck and Pedro Graber. As a team, the Blue Devils fell 6-1 to top-ranked Virginia—snapping a four-match winning streak—but bounced back on Sunday against Virginia Tech by the same margin.
The Yellow Jackets, meanwhile, are coming off a five-match winning streak. Led by Gomez—who is 26-6 in singles matches this season—and Spir, they are undefeated at home.
“Georgia Tech is really good,” Smith said. “I think this is the best team they’ve had in 10 years. They’re strong from top to bottom.”
Gomez enters the weekend on a nine-match winning streak, and will face Cunha in what Smith referred to as the “most important” singles match of the weekend.
Despite the high-profile status of that match, Duke will rely heavily on its freshmen, who have played a central role in Duke’s success so far this season. Chris Mengel has won seven of his last nine outings and Fred Saba has gone 22-14 overall for the Blue Devils.
“We knew it was a good class on paper—the No. 1 class—but they’ve really proven to be a special group of guys,” Smith said. “I knew Fred and Chris were going to be slated into singles, but Cale [Hammond] snuck into the doubles line-up and is 5-0 [in dual match play]. He’s been working as hard as anyone and earned his spot.”
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