Duke men's tennis hones skills at ITA Carolina Regional

The Blue Devils had their second consecutive successful tournament, holding their own against the best tennis players in North Carolina and South Carolina.

After four of Duke's more inexperienced players significantly improved at the Wake Forest Fall Invitational, the whole team fed off the momentum and had several significant results at this weekend's ITA Carolina Regional at the Cary Tennis Park in Cary, N.C, which concluded Monday. Most notably, sophomore Michael Redlicki, seeded third overall in the 128-player singles draw, advanced to the semifinals before falling 6-7 (7), 6-3, 6-2 to seventh seed Joran Vliegen of East Carolina.

"This was definitely Michael's best tournament of the fall," head coach Ramsey Smith said. "He won a lot of close matches and did a really good job of stepping up and playing aggressive tennis. I thought he was serving big and forcing the issue with his opponents."

Even though three of Duke's four best players from last season, junior Rafael Hemmeler and seniors Fred Saba and Chris Mengel, were sidelined due to injury, the Blue Devils that did compete made the most of their opportunities.

"Overall, it was definitely a good event for us," Smith said. "The guys that we put out there did a really good job.... We had some big wins, and I thought most of our guys played really well."

Redlicki also fared well in doubles, teaming up with junior Jason Tahir to earn the number one seed in the 64-team doubles draw that featured only a little more than 50 teams, meaning several teams got first round byes. Redlicki and Tahir reached the semifinals before falling 8-4 to the 10th-seeded team of Robbie Mudge and Sean Weber of North Carolina State.

"[Redlicki and Tahir] have a very good feeling of how to play together," Smith said. "They complement each other's games very well. They fell a little bit short in the semifinals, but overall it was a good showing."

Sophomore Bruno Semenzato also had a successful singles tournament, advancing to the quarterfinals as the 13th seed by upsetting fourth-seeded Rafael Aita of UNC Wilmington 2-6, 6-2, 7-6 (5) before falling in straight sets to fifth-seeded Cameron Silverman of Elon.

Tahir added a strong showing in singles to his successful doubles tournament, winning three matches to advance to the round of 16. Silverman also took out the 12th-seeded Tahir 6-1, 3-6, 6-3. It was Tahir's first tournament since he injured his elbow in July.

"I was really happy to see him back on the court," Smith said. "I thought he played incredibly well considering how few matches he's played this year."

Silverman made a habit of terrorizing Blue Devils in the tournament, also defeating redshirt junior Cale Hammond in the round of 64 by a score of 6-4, 2-6, 6-1. Hammond, who won his singles draw at the Wake Forest Fall Invitational to capture his first career college singles title, showed how much he has improved even in defeat by pushing the fifth-seeded Silverman to a third set.

"Cale's really made a big jump the second half of the fall," Smith said. "I think the Wake Forest event gave him a boost of confidence, and he's started to play a more aggressive style of game that we've been working on him with. He's shown that he can play with the very top players.... It should give him a lot of confidence."

Hammond teamed with sophomore Daniel McCall in doubles. The pair won two matches 8-7 in tiebreakers before falling in the round of 16 to the second-seeded team of Aita and Sam Williams of UNC Wilmington 8-7 (2) in a tiebreaker. Aita and Williams went on to win the doubles championship.

"I was really impressed with Dan and Cale," Smith said. "They really showed some signs of great doubles and really complemented each other well."

Other Blue Devils who won matches were freshman TJ Pura, who won two singles matches, sophomore and 16th-seeded Josh Levine, who won one, and the doubles team consisting of Pura and Semenzato.

After gaining so much valuable experience, Duke will wrap up its fall season with the Dick Vitale Intercollegiate Clay Court Classic and USTA/ITA Indoor Nationals the weekend of Nov. 8. Duke will likely send multiple competitors to both events.

"We've made some nice jumps these last two tournaments," Smith said. "We're looking to get Fred and Rafa [Hemmeler] healthy to where they can get one more match in [the fall] and overall just to continue the trend of improvement these last two tournaments."