The Winston-Salem Open awarded one of its main draw doubles wild cards to the Wake Forest Men’s Tennis team, and they took the “wild” literally.
Luca Pow and DK Suresh, who are gearing up to attend classes next week, are making the most of their summer vacations.
Just up the street from campus at the Wake Forest Tennis Complex, Pow and Suresh beat Gonzalo Escobar and Aleksandr Nedovyesov 6-1, 4-6, 10-8 on Wednesday to waltz into Friday’s semifinals.
“We’ve really got nothing to lose and are just having fun,” said Pow, a rising sophomore from England, who hit numerous big shots in both matches they have won.
The two have won each match in the super tiebreaker showing they aren’t afraid of the pressure that comes in that format.
“I just can’t really say what’s going on at this point,” Suresh said with a big smile. “I mean, the homecourt is nice but we are just playing together, and I love playing with this guy.”
The two never played doubles together this past season during Pow’s freshman year. Suresh, a rising junior from India, has excelled in both singles and doubles at Wake Forest.
“When our college fans are out here cheering for us in a pro tournament there’s just something to it,” Suresh said.
In the 13 years of the tournament, several singles players and doubles teams from Wake Forest were awarded wild card entries into the tournament, but nobody ever won a main draw match.
That’s changed now that Suresh and Pow have won two in a row.
“They are just playing some really unbelievable tennis,” said Coach Tony Bresky, who guided the Demon Deacons to the NCAA championship in 2018. “They both want to be top singles players, obviously, but they’ve found some rhythm here and it’s great to see our fans come out and it’s great to see them live to see another day in the tournament.”
Not to be outdone with the Wake Forest connection on Wednesday was Skander Mansouri, a 29-year-old who played for the Demon Deacons on that NCAA championship team in 2018. Mansouri and Nichael Barientos also advanced in doubles by upsetting top-seed Neal Skupski and Michael Venus with a nail-biting score line of 6-4, 3-6, 10-7 to advance.
“I saw what they did and that’s great,” Mansouri said about the Wake Forest duo moving on. “I don’t think we want to play them at this point.”
The only this former Deac would face the current Wake duo is if both teams make it to Saturday for the final.
“I think we stayed composed throughout the match,” Mansouri said about the win. “We had one or two bad games, but we stayed calm, and were composed when it mattered most.”
Also in doubles ,it was Rafael Matos and Marcelo Melo beating Alexander Erler and Robin Haase 7-5, 6-4. Jamie Murray and John Peers upset fifth-seeded Ivan Dodig and Adam Pavlasek.
David Goffin won his second straight match in straight sets beating Arthur Rinderknech 6-3, 6-3 as he advances to the quarterfinals on Thursday. This marks Goffin’s 40th Tour-level quarterfinal.
“I’ve never been to the semifinals here so it’s an opportunity for me, and hopefully I can take advantage (on Thursday),” Goffin said.
The run by American Zach Svajda came to an end with Pavel Kotov winning 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 in a match that lasted more than two hours. Svajda, who is from San Diego, held off match point four times until Kotov finally closed it out.
Kotov faces the 10 seed, Lorenzo Sonego, who advanced to the quarterfinals through a walkover after Juncheng Shang withdrew with a back injury.
