Duke's first road trip of the season did not quite go as planned.
The No. 25 Blue Devils started the weekend on a high note with a 4-3 win at Tennessee Friday evening in Knoxville, Tenn., but were swept out of Michigan's Varsity Tennis Center 7-0 by the Wolverines Sunday, handing Duke a fifth loss in six matches. The Volunteers captured the doubles point before the Blue Devils roared back to claim a dramatic victory, but the same start in Ann Arbor, Mich., returned a far less favorable outcome.
“I thought we responded extremely well after losing the double’s point and probably played our most complete singles from start to finish on Friday night on the road and against a good team like Tennessee,” Duke head coach Ramsey Smith said. "From singles to doubles, [Michigan was] was the more aggressive team and in singles they really took it to us in the beginning and we were had to react and play more receptively than we wanted to."
The Wolverines (5-1) disposed of their opponents quickly, winning the first set on all six singles courts and claiming four of the six matches in straight sets. Michigan's Jathan Malik scored a 6-2, 6-4 win against No. 12 Nicolas Alvarez—the Blue Devils' top singles player—to stretch the home squad's advantage to 3-0, and the Wolverines clinched the victory on court two, where Alex Knight beat freshman Catalin Mateas 6-4, 6-2.
With Duke's fate already sealed, a pair of Blue Devils (2-5) continued to battle to try to get their team on their scoreboard.
Michigan’s Carter Lin broke senior Josh Levine to capture a 6-4 first-set victory at No. 5 singles, but the Blue Devil battled back to escape the second set 6-4 and force a decisive frame. Lin proved to be too much to handle in the third set, though, picking up another 6-4 victory.
All eyes then turned to court three, where Vincent Lin was locked in a battle with Davis Crocker. The Duke freshman rebounded from a 3-6 setback in the opening stanza with a 6-2 win in the second set, then gave the Wolverine redshirt sophomore all he could handle in the third set. The pairing headed to the tie-break, which went Crocker's way by a 7-4 decision to preserve the Michigan shutout.
The valiant effort by Lin capped a strong first trip for the Schaumburg, Ill., native, who picked up a dominant 6-1, 6-1 win at Tennessee Friday in the first road match of his college career. With Mateas and classmate Ryan Dickerson joining Lin in the lineup, every match is a crucial step in the development of the freshmen.
“The freshmen are learning and they are definitely showing a lot of improvements since the fall," Smith said. "There are definitely areas where they can improve, but every match they play they are gaining important experience that will make them better in the long run.... [Road trips] are overall great bonding experiences because the guys are wholly focused on the matches at hand and there aren’t as many distractions as there would be back home.”
Against the Volunteers (5-2), the Blue Devils overcame an early 1-0 deficit following doubles play, as Levine quickly evened the score with a 6-2, 6-2 win against Preston Touliatos. His teammates were not far behind in following him off the court, as Lin's straight-set victory, Mateas' 6-3, 6-3 triumph against Timo Stodder on court two and Alvarez's 6-3, 7-5 win against No. 75 Igor Smelyanski closed out the win for Duke.
Junior captain T.J. Pura endured an 0-2 weekend, falling 2-6, 3-6 at Tennessee at third singles Friday and 3-6, 4-6 Sunday at Michigan on court four, trading places with Lin.
“This sport and college tennis in particular is all about handling adversity in loses and coming together to bounce back strong. We have a good group of guys who are working hard and it's a young group that is trying to find a way and our identity as a team, and unfortunately this is just part of the process," Smith said. "Overall, [Sunday] was extremely disappointing, but we need to look at the positives and we did pick up a good road win on Friday and we need to figure out a lot of different things that we need to work on."
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.