Top-ranked Wake Forest Men’s Tennis (19-0, 2-0 ACC) is on a roll, entering conference play and defeating two ranked opponents over the weekend, including the No. 9 Stanford Cardinal and No. 26 California Golden Bears.
The Demon Deacons continued on their historic start to the season. After winning the ITA National Team Indoor Championship in February, Head Coach Tony Bresky’s squad came back to Winston-Salem and continued on their best start to a season yet. The team opened the season with 19 consecutive wins, five more than their next best season (14 wins), 2018).
One of the key factors to the Demon Deacons’ hot start has been their dominance in doubles play. Against Stanford, the partnerships of No. 15 DK Suresh/Charlie Robertson and Franco Capalbo/Ioannis Xilas each won their sets to clinch, with the latter duo winning a final tiebreaker in third doubles.
With the doubles point clinched, the Demon Deacons continued their momentum, winning two courts with both Suresh and Capalbo, the latter of whom beat Stanford’s Nico Godsick in straight sets, 6-3, 6-4.
Stanford bounced back on other courts, however. Both Henry von der Schulenberg and No. 80 Max Basing won second and third singles for the Cardinal, respectively, putting the Demon Deacons at just a 3-2 overall advantage. After Pow fell behind in the third set in fifth singles, it came down to fourth singles.
Amidst growing adversity, the Demon Deacons found a hero. Freshman Charlie Robertson bounced back against the Cardinal’s Kyle Kang to win in the fourth singles, 3-6, 6-4, 7-5, and clinch the program’s first win in conference play.
“It was an unbelievable effort by [Robertson] to finish it out there,” Bresky said in a post-match statement. “He showed an incredible amount of toughness. He played great tennis, the tennis we know he can play.”
Against California, the Demon Deacons continued their dominance in doubles — the No. 3 Tacchi/Pow and Suresh/Robertson pairings each won their courts.
Currently, Suresh is the only player in the country to be featured in the ITA national doubles rankings four times, partnered with Dostanic (No. 5), Andrew Delgado (No. 16), Xilas (No. 43) and Robertson (No. 50).
“I think that a lot of people know that [DK] is the best doubles player in the country,” Bresky said. “It’s huge for us that we can toss in someone else with DK and they can still be great.”
In singles play, Suresh continued his dominance against ranked opponents. He would defeat No. 6 Carl Emil Overbeck in straight sets, 6-3, 6-4, to win all four of his matches on the weekend. Luca Pow would also win his court in fifth singles, defeating Derrick Chen, 6-2, 6-4.
The Demon Deacons also went into the weekend without No. 11 Stefan Dostanic, the second-highest ranked Demon Deacon according to the ITA. In his stead came graduate student Franco Capalbo, a former Pac-12 First Team player at Utah. With his experience came leadership and a chance to play in singles — yet his match stood unfinished at 4-6, 6-2, 1-0.
“[Capalbo]’s been itching to get in there,” Bresky said. “He’s a true leader of our team. He’s an unbelievable captain- and he knows that when it’s his time, he’s ready to go.”
The Demon Deacons finished the match with a commanding win from No. 65 Ioannis Xilas, who beat Cal’s No. 49 Alex Chang, 7-6(1), 6-2.
“We were very excited to get another ACC home win this afternoon, Cal has an excellent team,” Bresky said. “We’re happy with today’s results and looking forward to next weekend on the road.”
Wake Forest Men’s Tennis travels up to Blacksburg, Virginia, to take on the Virginia Tech Hokies on March 7th. First serve is set for 2 p.m.
