The Notre Dame men’s tennis team opened up ACC play with a road trip to No. 54 Georgia Tech and No. 33 Clemson over the weekend. Despite the best efforts of junior Sebastian Dominko, who won both of his doubles matches alongside fellow junior Noah Becker and earned a pair of ranked wins at No. 1 singles, the Irish fell in both contests, 4-1 and 4-2 respectively. The losses dropped their record to 10-4 on the season and 0-2 to begin conference play in 2025.
Georgia Tech
The Friday evening matchup with the Yellow Jackets in Atlanta was the first outdoor match of the season for Notre Dame. Dominko and Becker finished the first doubles match on court three, with a comfortable 6-3 victory. The Georgia Tech pairings on courts one and two, part of the No. 19-ranked doubles unit in the country, both overcame early breaks to secure the doubles point, with the senior duo of Jamie Corsillo and Yu Zhang surrendering a 5-2 advantage on court two in the deciding match.
The No. 39-ranked Dominko was first off the court with a dominant 6-1, 6-3 win over No. 104-ranked Nate Bonetto at No. 1 singles, prevailing in seven different deuce games to even the match score at 1-1. Georgia Tech, however, would take three consecutive straight-set wins in the bottom half of the singles lineup to secure the 4-1 victory. This left Zhang’s roaring comeback attempt on court three unfinished in the third set, and stopped sophomore Chase Thompson as he served to stay alive in a 4-5 second set on court two.
Clemson
The Irish would make their way to Clemson, South Carolina, two days later, returning indoors to face the Tigers at the Duckworth Family Tennis Facility. After Clemson jumped out to an early doubles lead on court one, Dominko/Becker responded with their second win of the weekend, leaving the doubles point in the hands of freshmen Luis Llorens Saracho and Peter Nad on court three. After a failed opportunity to serve out the match at 5-4, the young duo fell behind for the first time in the match at 6-5. They would respond, however, as Saracho held serve to force a tiebreak which they won 7-5 on an unforced error from the home team.
Facing the No. 47 player in the country, Dominko put on another outstanding display to take a 6-1, 6-4 win, losing only one point on his serve the entire match. The bottom half of the singles lineup started to mount a comeback for Clemson, as straight set victories on courts five and six evened the match score at 2-2. Viktor Markov took down Nad in a three-set war on court three before No. 90-ranked Wissam Abderrahman scraped past Zhang in a pair of hard-fought sets to close it out. Corsillo was left stranded up 3-2 in the third set at No. 4 singles.
Notre Dame will return to South Bend for another pair of ACC contests against Duke on Friday, March 7, and North Carolina on Sunday, March 9.
