Duke Championship Bound After Victory Over Wake Forest

DURHAM – No. 12 Duke men’s tennis is heading to the ACC Championship title match for the first time since 2012 after it beat No. 20 Wake Forest on Saturday afternoon at Cone-Kenfield Indoor Courts on the campus of North Carolina.
 
Despite dropping the doubles point, the second-seeded Blue Devils (20-5) rallied in singles play to claim three-straight matches to pull in front 3-1. The sixth-seeded Demon Deacons (25-11) registered wins over the next two contests to knot the score at 3-3. With the match and a trip to the title contest on the line, Andrew Dale delivered in the clutch for the Blue Devils once again. The junior battled past Luciano Tacchi in three sets to secure the match for Duke.
 
Duke now shifts its attention to the championship match where it will face top-seeded and No. 8-ranked Virginia on Sunday at 2 p.m. at Cary Tennis Park. The match will be broadcast live on ACC Network Extra.
 
How It Happened

• The Demon Deacons outlasted the Blue Devils in the deciding third match of doubles play to claim the point and jump out to an early 1-0 edge.
• Filippo Moroni and Matthew Thomson halted the 11-match winning streak of No. 21 Garrett Johns and Pedro Rodenas when they bested the duo, 6-3, on the top court. The Blue Devils battled back on court three to knot the score at one match apiece following a 6-2 victory by juniors Faris Khan and Niroop Vallabhaneni over Melios Efstathiou and Juan Lopez de Azcona.
• With the doubles point coming down to the outcome on court two, the Demon Deacons registered the 7-6 (2) tiebreak win by No. 70 Jurabek Karimov and Tacchi over Connor Krug and