Box Score
DURHAM, NC--The Winthrop men's tennis season came to an end on Saturday as it dropped a 4-0 decision to N. 11 Duke in the first round of the 2014 NCAA Championship which was held at Ambler Tennis Stadium.

The #73 Eagles didn't go down without a fight, however, as the winning point came on a tie breaker in the second set of the No. 6 singles flight, and two other matches were in the third set when the deciding point was scored..

The Eagles were making their fifth NCAA Tournament appearance overall and the first under third-year head coach Andrew Stubbs, who is already looking forward to next season as he loses one senior from his top eight players. Winthrop closes out the season with a 16-10 record while Duke improves to 20-6 and will face Tennessee, a 4-1 first round winner over Elon, in the final on Sunday.

"Hats off to Duke.  The better team won today," said Stubbs.  "They came out really quickly in doubles and the first set of singles. I felt like we started to believe when we got them into the second set and we gave them a little bit of a run there, but .we just couldn't hold them off.   Out guys played really well today, but in the end the better team won."

Duke took the early advantage by capturing the doubles point by winning the No. 2 and 3 flights.  Josh Levine and Jason Tahir defeated Winthrop sophomore Steven Patrick and freshman Tremayne Mitchell at No. 2 (8-1) while Bruno Semenzato and Cale Hammond teamed up to down sophomores Juan Pablo Boada and Corey DeCandia (8-2).  Juniors Dylan Comerford and his partner Peter Nagovnak were tied at 3-3 with Fred Saba and Raphael Hemmeler when the doubles point was decided.

Duke jumped out quickly in singles play and won five of the first sets.  The only exception was at the No. 5 flight where Boada dispatched Levine 6-4.  Hemmeler gave the Blue Devils a 2-0 lead when he knocked out Patrick at No. 3 singles (6-0,. 6-1).  The Duke advantage went to 3-0 when senior Yuta Hirokawa, playing his final collegiate match, fell to No. 32 singles player Tahir (6-0, 6-4) at the No. 1 position. In the deciding match at No. 6, sophomore Michael Chen fell to TJ Pura in two sets with the second set decided on a tiebreaker (7-6, 6-2 (7-3). 

Boada was trailing Levine 3-1 in the third set and Mitchell was leading Semenzato 4-3 in the third set at No. 4 when the match ended. Comerford's No. 2 singles match was unfinished in the second set as he lost 7-5 and was trailing 5-1.


"It was exciting to see how our guys fought back after losing the doubles point and falling behind in the first singles set to keep competing and trying hard to have a chance there at the end," said Stubbs.  "It says a lot about what we are building here (at Winthrop).  These guys have come a long way, and I am looking forward to see how we continue to develop next year."