Pedro Dumont earned his team-leaading third clinching point.
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- Pedro Dumont won the deciding match in a third-set tiebreak to give No. 25 Wake Forest a 4-3 win against No. 74 Georgia Tech on Saturday at the Wake Forest Indoor Tennis Center.
With the match on a knife's edge and the overall result down to him, Dumont converted on his fifth match point deep into the deciding tiebreak to beat Georgia Tech's Will Showers 5-7, 6-0, 7-6 (7) and give the Demon Deacons (10-7, 1-3 ACC) a needed victory.
"I'm really happy that I could help the team to win the match," Dumont said. "We've lost our last five matches, so it was lot of pressure for me as the last match on. I was thinking to just stay calm. I just wanted to be in my own zone."
The win didn't come easily for Dumont. A sophomore from Brazil, Dumont had three match points at 40-0 on his serve at 6-5 in the final set, but Showers came back to win the next five points to force the deciding tiebreak.
Then after Showers saved a fourth match point, he earned a match point himself and during the ensuing rally, Dumont's groundstroke clipped the tape before falling in. Dumont would go on to win that point and three of the next four to close out his third clinching victory of the season -- tops on the team.
Dumont was only in that clinching position because Wake Forest excelled in areas that it hadn't in recent weeks, winning the doubles point and getting a key win at the No. 6 singles position.
Playing together for the first time this season, Anthony Delcore and Jon Ho battled Showers and Colin Edwards at the No. 3 doubles position before breaking the Yellow Jackets in the final game to win 8-6.
No. 53 Adam Lee and Dumont showed no signs of rust in their first match together since early February, breaking No. 23 Carlos Benito and Eduardo Segura early at the No. 1 position and holding on to the advantage to win 8-6, clinching the doubles point. It was the second ranked win of the season for the team of Dumont and Lee.
It was clear from the outset that singles would be a battle -- Wake Forest fell into early holes on four courts.
One person who had no trouble was No. 32 Romain Bogaerts who jumped on Segura from the outset and finally closed out a marathon final game to win 6-2, 6-2. But that victory only evened the overall match score at 2-2 as Nathan Rakitt had earlier taken down Maksim Kan and Benito had dispatched Ho, both in straight sets.
That left three matches left on court with each team needing to win two to win the match.
At the No. 6 position, Nicky Kunz cruised through the first set 6-2 and built a 4-1 lead in the second before his opponent, Colin Edwards, broke back to even things up. Kunz, a junior transfer from Davidson, kept his focus though, continuing to put pressure on Edwards' serve, and it finally paid off as he broke in the final game to earn a 6-2, 7-5 win that gave the Deacs a 3-2 lead.
But minutes later the Yellow Jackets evened the score again as Cole Fiegel fought past a determined No. 45 Lee 7-6 (3), 7-5 to leave things to be decided by Dumont and Showers at No. 5.
At that point, Dumont was just stepping up to the line to serve things out at 6-5 in the third set, and five match points and a roller coaster ride later he would give the Demon Deacons victory.
