For the third straight year, Duke suffered a heartbreaking loss in the ACC championship match against Virginia.
The third-seeded Blue Devils beat N.C. State and North Carolina in the quarterfinals and semifinals, respectively, but fell 4-1 to the top-seeded Cavaliers—who have now won 92 consecutive conference matches.
“I would rather lose [6-0, 6-0] and have the team win then to lose a team match,” said freshman Jason Tahir, the only Blue Devil to win a singles match. “We are going to definitely beat them in my four years.”
Virginia, the only team besides North Carolina who defeated Duke during ACC regular-season play, won the critical doubles point 2-1 over Duke. Fred Saba and David Holland were the only Duke pairing to win their match, routing the Virginia duo of Justin Shane and Steven Eelkman Rooda 8-2. The other two doubles matches were both close, with Raphael Hemmeler and Torsten Wietoska losing 8-5 to Mitchell Frank and Alex Domijan, and the No. 15 team of Henrique Cunha and Chris Mengel lost 8-6 against the No. 18 pairing of Jarmere Jenkins and Drew Courtney.
“I felt like we played well,” Cunha said. “Doubles was hard. One break can define the match. We were serving well but then the last game we had some unlucky points and they took their chances.”
In singles, Virginia took five of six first sets using their momentum from doubles. No. 36 Mengel lost to No. 42 Domijan 6-2, 6-2, and Saba fell to Courtney 7-6 (7-5), 6-3. A Cavalier team victory was one point away, but both Wietoska’s match against No. 1 Frank and Hemmeler’s match with No. 79 Justin Shane were pushed to third sets, keeping Duke’s chances alive. Before either could notch victories, though, No. 4 Cunha fell to No. 5 Jenkins 6-3, 7-6 (7-4).
Two days earlier, the Blue Devils started their ACC tournament run by dismantling the sixth-seeded Wolfpack 4-0. Duke edged N.C. State in two doubles matches that went back and forth. Cunha and Mengel held on to win 8-6 against Julian Sullivan and Dominic Hodgson, followed by Wietoska and Hemmeler winning 8-7 over Dave Thomson and Sean Weber.
“Especially in the tournament format it is always nice to get that first point,” head coach Ramsey Smith said, “but even if we lost that point I would have felt totally comfortable in singles.”
Duke took quick control in singles, claiming all six first sets. At No. 1 singles, Cunha went on to win 6-2, 6-2 against No. 35 Jaime Pulgar, and soon after, Hemmeler stretched the Blue Devil lead to 3-0 with a 6-1, 6-1 defeat of Robbie Mudge. Tahir clinched the match for the Blue Devils with a 6-1, 6-0 win over Ivan Sanchez Gomez.
The following afternoon, Duke took on archrival North Carolina, who they had lost to in a 4-3 defeat just nine days before. This time, the Blue Devils did not allow the Tar Heels to gain the advantage off the doubles point, fighting off strong attacks by all three doubles teams. The No. 3 doubles pairing of Wietoska and Hemmeler were the first to finish, winning 8-5 over Esben Hess-Olesen and Zach Hunter. With Cunha and Mengel slowly climbing back from a 7-2 deficit, Saba and Holland secured the point with an 8-5 victory over Cameron Ahari and Brennan Boyajian.
Despite the momentum from doubles, the Blue Devils struggled at first in singles play. Hemmeler dropped his match to William Parker 6-4, 6-2 and Wietoska lost soon after to Hess-Olesen 6-3, 6-2, giving North Carolina a 2-1 advantage. Cunha, who lost in a tight match to No. 27 Jose Hernandez during the regular season, easily routed him 6-2, 6-4, and Saba won over Joey Burkhardt 6-1, 6-4. Mengel and Tahir were the last two on the court. With Tahir pushing his opponent to a third set, Mengel sealed the victory for Duke with a solid 7-5, 6-4 win over No. 81 Boyajian, to whom he had lost nine days earlier.
“It was a heartbreaker last time,” Mengel said of Duke’s regular season loss to the Tar Heels. “Personally I took a lot of responsibility for that. It came down to me and I got a little unlucky and cramped. But I made sure today that I was really focused and it was a different match.”
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