Duke Opens Split Weekend With Three Wins

Friday, October 10

Winston-Salem, N.C.

All Day

Duke University

Day One at Wake Forest Fall Invitational

Duke Paces ACC with Five on All-Academic Team

Duke Opens Split Weekend With Three Wins

10/10/2014 10:28:00 PM | Men's Tennis

By: Duke Sports Information

DURHAM, N.C. – In a weekend of split action, Duke turned in a strong first day at two tournaments Friday. The Blue Devils sent three players to the Wake Forest Fall Invitational in Winston-Salem and two players to the Battle in the Bay Classic in San Francisco. The five combined to post a 2-3 singles record Friday with a 2-2 mark in doubles.

In Winston-Salem, redshirt senior Chris Mengel played in the A1 singles draw and downed UNC Greensboro's Randy Phillips 6-3, 6-3. Mengel will face Tennessee's Hunter Reese in the draw's quarterfinals at 9 a.m. Saturday. If Mengel wins, he'll advance to Saturday's draw semifinals.

In the same A1 draw, junior Josh Levine made his fall debut and suffered a 6-0, 6-2 setback to Elon's Stefan Fortmann. Levine takes on UNC Wilmington's Chris Van der Burgh at 9 a.m. Saturday in the consolation quarterfinals. A victory moves Levine to Saturday's consolation semifinals. Senior Jason Tahir was the No. 2 seed in the A2 singles draw and topped Wofford's Rob Galloway 6-3, 6-4 to move to the 9 a.m. Saturday quarterfinals against Rice's Adam Gustafsson. If Tahir wins he'll also advance to the semifinals on Saturday.

Tahir and Mengel were the top seed in the A3 doubles draw and downed Liberty's Egon Samaii and Jorge Azuero 8-7 (3) before falling to Georgia State's Sofiane Chevallier and Zachery Kennedy 8-3. The pair will take on North Carolina's Stuart DePaolo and Maik Ulrich on Sunday in the third-place match.

In San Francisco, sophomore TJ Pura returned to action for the first time since the opening fall weekend and suffered a 6-2, 6-2 setback to USC's Nick Crystal. Junior Daniel McCall, a San Francisco native, also took a loss, falling to Pacific's Sem Verbeek 6-2, 6-3. Pura will face California's Gregory Bayane on Saturday at 4 p.m. ET while McCall takes on Boise State's Brendan McClain in the consolation third round at 4:30 p.m. ET on Saturday.

McCall and Pura teamed up in doubles and defeated UCLA's Joseph Di Giulio and Austin Rapp 8-6 before falling to California's Bayane and Andre Goransson, the draw's top seed, 8-3.

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