Duke’s chances of making the NCAA tournament looked bleak toward the end of March.
When the Blue Devils only had four healthy players, they forfeited three matches against then-No. 2 Virginia for their fourth loss in six contests.
But Duke rebounded with several critical wins in the second half of the ACC slate to play its way into the field of 64, with the Blue Devils set to face No. 22 South Florida in the first round Friday at 11 a.m. No. 13 seed Georgia is hosting the regional at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex in Athens, Ga., and will face the winner of Duke’s matchup if it gets past Florida A&M.
“I’m proud of how well we finished and we’re playing our best tennis at the end of the year,” Blue Devil head coach Ramsey Smith said. “This is what you play for, the NCAA tournament, and everyone remembers how you finish, so we have an opportunity to finish really well.”
Duke (16-9) failed to qualify for the tournament last year for the first time since 1991 and faced more adversity this season with junior Nicolas Alvarez—the Blue Devils’ top player and one of only two upperclassmen on the team—sidelined for the entire spring.
Senior TJ Pura enters the weekend as Duke’s lone player with NCAA tournament experience—he went 3-1 in singles as a freshman and sophomore in the tournament—and was the easy choice to win the Blue Devils’ team leadership award before they boarded the bus to go to Georgia.
“I don’t need to coach them too much. We’ve got a really competitive and focused group of guys,” Pura said. “But I’ll definitely give them some sort of pep talk when we get to Athens and just give them a little more of an idea of what it’s like and what it means.”
Pura ranks second behind freshman Nick Stachowiak with 30 singles wins this season and tallied perfect 11-0 ACC slate to help win tight matches down the stretch against Clemson, Notre Dame and Louisville. The Pacific Palisades, Calif., native has provided consistency at the No. 5 singles spot with Duke’s youth taking control of the top courts.
No. 74 Spencer Furman, Robert Levine and Stachowiak have all been mainstays among the top four as freshmen since Levine returned from a month-long absence due to mononucleosis. Sophomore Catalin Mateas went 8-3 in ACC singles play, primarily at No. 2 singles.
Sophomore Ryan Dickerson rounds out the Blue Devils’ regular lineup at No. 6 singles, and classmate Jason Lapidus generally plays doubles instead of Levine.
“These freshmen are pretty mature and the sophomores went through a lot last year,” Smith said. “Team chemistry-wise we’re in a great place, and I think we’re just excited to get out there.”
Duke will have its hands full in the first round with the Bulls (17-8), who have won four straight matches and swept three of those contests. Top singles player Sasha Gozun ranks 52nd in the nation, and No. 99 Peter Bertran is 14-1 this season on Court 4.
The AAC champions have advanced past the first round of the NCAA tournament in three straight years and their experience—with two seniors and two juniors in their singles lineup—could be a strong foil to their relatively young opponents.
Gozun, a 6-foot-5 senior from Moldova, lost in doubles to the Blue Devils at the 2013 Fab Four Invitational in the fall of his freshman year.
“We’ve played their number one player, Gozun. He’s a big guy with a huge serve,” Smith said. “They’re very strong top to bottom and they play good doubles, so it’s going to be a great challenge right off the bat.”
If Duke manages to get past South Florida, the Bulldogs will likely be standing in the way of a trip to the Round of 16. Georgia (18-7) features three singles players ranked in the top 60 and has won 10 of its last 11 matches capped by an SEC championship in the last week of April.
The Blue Devils have not beat a ranked team yet this season but have not lost a first-round NCAA tournament match since their first postseason appearance in 1982. And they are hungry to keep the winning streak going Friday.
“We’ve worked really hard throughout the whole year kind of trusting the process, and for a little while there in the middle of the season, it looked a little iffy,” Pura said. “So it feels good to be [in the tournament], but we’re definitely not satisfied.”
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