No. 9 Duke Edges No. 26 Notre Dame 4-3 on Sunday

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Sunday, February 5

Durham, N.C.

1 p.m.

Duke University

Notre Dame

No. 4 Duke Faces No. 27 Florida State on Sunday in Tallahassee

No. 9 Duke Edges No. 26 Notre Dame 4-3 on Sunday

2/5/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis

By: Duke Sports Information

Durham, N.C. - No. 9 Duke hosted their third straight ranked opponent on Sunday and came away with a 5-2 win over No. 26 Notre Dame.

The Blue Devils came back after losing the doubles point to win the first set in five of the six singles matches. The only first set that Notre Dame won was in the No. 5 singles as Ryan Keckley edged Duke's Kiril Dimitrov 7-6 (5) in a tiebreaker. The Blue Devils went on to close out three of those matches to take a 3-1 lead in the match. Peter Rodrigues improved to 3-0 in dual matches this season as he moved up to the No. 3 spot and sailed to a 6-0, 6-1 win over Brett Helgeson. Joey Atas switched with Rodrigues in the lineup and took the No. 4 singles match in straight sets over Barry King 6-4, 6-4. Christopher Brown switched singles positions with Dimitrov in the order and was victorious at the No. 6 spot with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Irackli Akhvlediani.

The Fighting Irish battled their way back to tie the match at 3-3. After losing in the first set, 6-4, No. 14 Sheeva Parbhu faught back to take two straight sets from No. 20 Jonathan Stokke 6-4, 6-1 in the No. 2 match for his 15th win of the season. In the No. 5 match Dimitrov forced a third set with a 6-3 victory but Keckley picked up the win for the Irish with a 6-0 shutout victory in the final set. The match came down to the battle of the No. 1 singles players with two Top-10 players, Duke's No. 9 Ludovic Walter and Notre Dame's No. 7 Stephen Bass, facing off against each other. Walter jumped out to a 4-1 lead in the first set and ended up winning 6-4, but Bass came out strong in the second with a 6-2 victory after leading 4-1 at one point. In the third set, Walter trailed 2-3 but came back to score the next four points to clinch the match for Duke and earn his 12th win of the year and sixth against a ranked opponent.

Notre Dame started out by winning two of the three doubles matches. The team of Keckley and King defeated the Blue Devil's pairing of Stephen Amritraj and Stokke 8-2 in the No. 1 doubles match. The Irish also took the No. 3 doubles match. Eric Langenkamp and Andrew Roth gave Rodrigues and Ned Samuelson their first loss in duals this year by a score of 8-5. Duke won the No. 2 doubles match as Atas and Walter won 8-6 against Bass and Parbhu.

Duke will return to action at home next weekend when they host two ranked opponents. They will face No. 20 Texas on Friday at 6 p.m. and No. 25 Texas A&M on Sunday at 12 p.m.