DURHAM, N.C. -- Virginia posted its second top-15 road win of the weekend, downing No. 13 Duke 5-1 on Sunday at the Sheffield Indoor Tennis Center. The Cavaliers improved to 12-2 overall and 4-0 in the conference with the victory, while the Blue Devils (10-5, 2-1 ACC) suffered their first conference loss.
"It was good to get a road win against a great Duke team," head coach Brian Boland said. "We were up 3-0 and had Justin [Shane] up a break in the third and Thai [Kwiatkowski] serving for the match to clinch at 4-0, but give Duke credit for fighting back. It was a good learning experience for us and we need to continue to get better with each match we play."
Due to the match being played as part of the USTA College Match Day series, singles was played first and doubles would only be played if the match was tied 3-3. Virginia opened up the match strong winning five of the six first sets. Alex Domijan gave Virginia the lead with his 6-2, 6-3 win at No. 1 against Fred Saba. Ryan Shane doubled the lead with his 6-1, 6-3 victory at No. 3 versus Bruno Semenzato. J.C. Aragone extended the advantage to 3-0 as he posted a 7-5, 6-2 win against Daniel McCall at No. 6.
The Blue Devils needed to win the past three matches to force a doubles point. They cut into the lead with a win at No. 5 as Josh Levine topped Justin Shane 6-1, 2-6, 6-4 to make the score 3-1. Mitchell Frank made sure that doubles weren't necessary as he clinched the Cavalier victory with his 6-3, 7-6(5) win versus Jason Tahir at No. 2 singles. In the final match on the courts, Thai-Son Kwiatkowski rallied from down 4-0 in the third set to post a 6-4, 6-7(4), 7-6(2) win against Raphael Hemmeler at No. 4 singles.
Virginia extended its win streak against ACC competition (regular season and postseason) to 111 matches with the victory.
