Henrique Cunha, Duke’s usually stoic No. 1 singles player, did something out of the ordinary Saturday: he yelled.
The No. 9 Blue Devils (16-1, 4-1 in the ACC) had already dropped the doubles point to No. 18 Florida State (14-6, 2-3), and Cunha had his serve broken in the first singles game to Benjamin Lock, who subsequently went “ballistic” in the words of Duke head coach Ramsey Smith. Cunha, though, broke back and let out a scream of his own as the Blue Devils swept the six singles matches to down the Seminoles 6-1 at Ambler Tennis Stadium.
“I got fired up after the first game,” Cunha said. “It was good for my match and good for the other guys too, just to change the momentum.”
Cunha won eight consecutive games after having his initial serve broken, beating Lock 6-1, 6-4. Tensions between the duo ran high throughout the entire match as the umpire addressed both players at points to settle them down. But Lock’s emotion was not enough to help him deal with Cunha’s punishing groundstrokes that kept his opponent pinned beyond the baseline.
“[Florida State is] a pretty fiery team so I feel like our guys felt like they had to match that a little bit,” Smith said.
Cunha and partner Raphael Hemmeler, the No. 1 duo in the nation, beat No. 45-ranked Lock and Andres Bucaro, for Duke’s lone doubles victory. After Duke’s Chris Mengel and Fred Saba went down to tie the doubles score at one, Florida State clinched the match’s first point when Dominic Cotrone and Blake Davis upset the nation’s No. 14 pair of Michael Redlicki and Jason Tahir 8-6.
The set had been tied at 5-5 and the Blue Devils had a pair of game points to send it to a tiebreaker. But they ultimately could not convert as a Seminole volley gave them the early lead.
“It’s good to face adversity like this,” Smith said. “I don’t like losing double points, but looking back it’s nice to have been in that situation—lose the doubles point at home to a top-20 team that’s very dangerous. I was really happy with how the guys responded.”
No Blue Devil embodied the Duke response more than Redlicki, who rebounded from his doubles loss to beat Anderson Reed 6-4, 6-3. Redlicki said that earlier in the year he would allow a doubles defeat to affect his singles play. But Saturday he was able to brush it off and control the tempo of his match against Reed with strong forehands and savvy net play.
He also delivered the day’s most acrobatic play when Reed lobbed a ball over him at the net. Redlicki chased the ball down and hit a shot over his head with his back to the net, ultimately recovering to return to the net and slam home a winner.
“That all just plays into the mental warfare that goes into tennis,” Redlicki said. “If your opponent sees that you don’t give up on balls where he thought he won, then I come up with some crazy shot back, that kind of takes a toll on him.”
After Cunha, Hemmeler and Redlicki won their singles matches, Tahir won the fourth to clinch the Duke victory.
Even with the victory in tow, though, Mengel and Saba grinded out the final wins for a singles sweep.
Saba fought back from a match point to defeat Cotrone in the final match to conclude with players from both squads watching and loudly cheering on their teammates.
“Those are tricky matches because the intensity is relaxed,” Smith said. “But individually and for the team those matches are really important…. It sends a message: 6-1 could have easily been 4-3.”
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