April 5, 2018
By Joanne Norell
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – The University of Notre Dame men’s tennis team begins a four-match homestand this weekend when the Irish welcome Duke to the Eck Tennis Pavilion.
Match 24
WHO: No. 30 Notre Dame (12-11, 3-4 ACC) vs. No. 18/22 Duke (13-8, 4-2 ACC)
WHERE: Eck Tennis Pavilion
WHEN: Approximately 6:30 p.m. ET Friday
Live Stats/Stream
Scheduling Note
Originally slated to play at 3:30 p.m. ET Friday outdoors at the Courtney Tennis Center, the match between the Irish and Blue Devils will be moved indoors to the Eck Tennis Pavilion due to inclement weather. Because of the limited space inside the Eck and because both men’s and women’s tennis matches were scheduled to occur simultaneously, the women’s match with North Carolina was given priority and will go on at the originally scheduled time. The men’s match will follow at approximately 6:30 p.m.
On The Blue Devils
Friday will mark the second time this season that the Irish face Atlantic Coast Conference foe Duke, having previously met on Feb. 18 at the ITA National Team Indoor Championship in Seattle, where the Blue Devils eked out a 4-3 win over the Irish. Since then, Duke has gone 6-4, including 3-1 in its last four matches.
In the first meeting this season, the Irish won the doubles point as Tristan McCormick and Brendon Kempin defeated Nick Stachowiak and Sean Sculley at No. 1 and Richard Ciamarra and Matt Gamble upended Nicolas Alvarez and Catalin Mateas at No. 2. The Irish then won the first two singles matches to go up 3-0, with Gamble defeating Ryan Dickerson at No. 5 and Ciamarra beating Sculley at No. 4, but Duke won the four remaining matches to snag the win from the Irish.
Duke is led in the rankings by No. 17 Alvarez, who is 7-2 at No. 1 singles, while No. 99 Mateas is 6-6 between the No. 1, 2 and 3 spots this season.
Last Time Out
The Irish dropped two matches on the road, falling to No. 29 NC State and No. 1 Wake Forest last weekend.
Rankings Rundown
The Irish came in at No. 30 in this week’s Oracle/ITA Division I Men’s National Team Rankings. Junior Alex Lebedev comes in at No. 55 in singles in the most recent ITA rankings.
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Joanne Norell, athletics communications assistant director at the University of Notre Dame, has been part of the Fighting Irish athletics communications team since 2014 and coordinates communications efforts for the Notre Dame men’s tennis and fencing programs, in addition to assisting with football communications and overseeing production of the football Gameday Magazine. Norell is a 2011 graduate of Purdue University and earned her master’s degree from Georgetown University in 2013.