Two days after earning a comeback win at Miami, Duke fell just short of a similar rally against Florida State.
The Blue Devils found themselves trailing 3-0 and needing to win four straight singles matches to steal a victory. Duke got two of the wins, but fell 5-2 to the Seminoles at the Scott Speicher Tennis Center in Tallahassee, Fla., Sunday to round out a busy weekend of tennis with a 1-1 ledger. Duke began the match by losing the doubles point and fell behind 3-0 before junior T.J. Pura and senior Josh Levine stormed back to defeat their opponents in three sets and give the Blue Devils a chance to win.
Duke continued to battle on courts one and three, but suffered losses on both, sealing the win for Florida State.
“I thought we fought extremely well and put ourselves in a position to win with two courts left,” Duke head coach Ramsey Smith said. “[We] just couldn’t quite finish it off…. Until the very end there, I thought we were going to come back and win.”
The Blue Devils (7-8, 1-2 in the ACC) struggled in doubles play—an area of the dual match format they have had trouble with all season. On court one, Florida State’s No. 26 doubles pairing of Benjamin Lock and Marco Nunez defeated the duo of sophomore Nicolas Alvarez and freshman Vincent Lin 6-1, dropping the Duke tandem to 4-6 and 0-3 in conference play.
The Seminoles capitalized on some early momentum to win court three 6-3, defeating the pairing of Levine and freshman Ryan Dickerson. On the final court of doubles play, the Duke combo of freshman Jason Lapidus and senior Daniel McCall fell to their Seminole opponents in a close match that was nearly forced into a tiebreaker.
The clean sweep of doubles matches underscored the Blue Devils' issues with the opening point for a number of weeks now. The Blue Devils also lost the doubles point in their match against Miami, but were able to recover. Sunday, the group made some improvements against the Seminoles, but not enough to get the job done.
“We did some better things today in terms of playing with more energy and playing more aggressive,” Smith said. “We need to commit to doing that and trust that things are going to turn around. But Florida State is extremely good at doubles and right now that’s our worst point in the dual match. So we need to continue to work and continue to better at doubles because it’s obviously tough to battle back every time.”
The key moment in the match for the Blue Devils came when Pura and Levine bounced back from first-set losses to defeat their opponents and put Duke on the board.
Levine’s victory was especially rousing because it marked his first singles match in month after suffering a wrist injury. The Syosset, N.Y., native challenged for the first set, coming as close as 3-4 before ultimately losing 4-6. But Levine bounced back in a big way, wining the second set 6-4 and capturing the third with a resounding 6-0 win.
“We know [Levine’s] going to fight. He’s such a competitor,” Smith said. “I was really proud that we were able to put him in a difficult situation without any matches under his belt lately. He came through with a lot of energy and got us a big win.”
After Pura and Levine cut the deficit to 3-2, the Blue Devils needed a win on courts one and three in order to lock up a second consecutive ACC road victory.
On court one, Alvarez—the No. 20 singles player in the nation—was locked in a neck-and-neck battle with Florida State redshirt senior Benjamin Lock. Alvarez won the first set 6-4 to take the early advantage. The second set was tightly contested with the pair tied at every point until Lock won the last two games to win 7-5 and force a third set.
Freshman Catalin Mateas captured an early lead over on court three, winning the first set 7-5. But Seminole senior Michael Rinaldi struck back in the second set. The second set played out to be an even duel with both players tied at 5-5 before Rinaldi took the final two games and send things into a deciding third set.
Rinaldi created separation in the final frame and clinched the match for Florida State, outlasting Mateas 6-3. Alvarez fell just after his teammate, losing to Lock in the third set by the same margin.
“We got a win on the road in the ACC [against Miami] and that’s always good,” Smith said. “We competed and battled and gave ourselves a shot against Florida State…. We’ve got to stay positive, keep working, make a few adjustments and just keep getting better.”
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