The regular season came to an end Sunday as the Hurricane men’s tennis team fell to Duke in a 6-1 loss. Senior Todd Widom was recognized in his last home game as a senior.
The No. 27th ranked Hurricanes entered Sunday’s match against the Blue Devils with a record of 12-6. Starting out the day was the doubles teams, senior Andrew Golub and freshman Collin Purcell along with junior Luis Manrique and Widom. Both teams lost their matches against the Duke opponents.
Purcell came out for his singles match and earned the ‘Canes their only point of the day by defeating his opponent Jason Zimmerman in straight sets 6-1, 7-5.
“I’ve just been playing really well lately, at least at home,” Purcell said. “I’m one of the few guys who hasn’t gotten injured so that helps.”
The other singles matches included Jonathan Stokke of Duke defeating Miami’s Zachary Hood in straight sets 6-2, and 6-0.
Duke’s Ludovic Walter defeated Manrique in straight sets 6-4 and 6-0.
Michael Yani of Duke also defeated Golub in straight sets 6-4 and 6-4.
“I had my chances,” Golub said. “I served at 5-4 both sets and got broken. The guys were 34th in the country and I didn’t play my best tennis but I was happy. I feel good and glad to be one of the few to stay healthy all year.”
The Hurricanes Golub, the only senior on the team, was honored for his career before the day’s competition began.
The final match of the day was between Widom and No. 22 Phillip King. Widom started out winning the first set 6-2, but lost the second and third sets 6-4, 6-2.
The Hurricanes wrap up the regular season with a record of 12-7 and end up 27th ranked in the country. The Duke Blue Devils improved their record to 17-5 overall placing them 9th in the country.
The Hurricanes will host the Big East Tennis Tournament next weekend in the Neil Shiff Tennis center.
“I think we did pretty good today,” coach Bryan Getz said. “I wasn’t too happy with the singles tennis intensity today, I think we could do better there. We were a guy short so we could only start with 5 guys, which was kind of disappointing, but they did alright.”
Justin Waltz can be reached at j.waltz@umiami.edu.