Dostanic Delivers in Wake Forest's 4-3 Victory Over TCU for Demon Deacons Second ITA Men's Team Indoor Championship
©Colette Lewis 2025--
Dallas Texas--
Wake Forest's Stefan Dostanic returned to college tennis this year for a moment like the one he found himself in Tuesday night with the championship of the ITA Men's Division I Team Indoor on his racquet leading 5-4 in the final set of his match with TCU's Jack Pinnington Jones at line 1.
Dostanic rose to the occasion, starting that nerve-racking game with an ace and making every first serve to hold at love and deliver the Demon Deacons' second Team Indoor Championship in front of a disappointed crowd clad in Horned Frogs Purple.
"This is probably the best moment on a tennis court I've ever had," said the 23-year-old from Irvine California, who spent the first four years of eligibility at the University of Southern California. "At the end, I saw it was going to come down to me, and I thought, just embrace the moment, these are the moments I want to play for, so just have fun and go for it."
Wake Forest looked to be headed for less stressful ending when they took the doubles point and four first sets in singles.
Dostanic and DK Suresh took out the 2024 NCAA fall champions Lui Maxted and Pedro Vives 6-2 at line 1, while Pinnington Jones and Cooper Woestendick defeated Luciano Tacchi and Luca Pow 6-4, leaving the point up to line 3. Wake Forest's Franco Capalbo, playing with Ioannis Xilas, served for the match against Duncan Chan and Albert Pedrico at 5-3, but wasn't able to hold. Serving at 4-5, Pedrico and Chan faced two match points, but saved them both, with Chan making a shot so spectacular that it produced a scream of disbelief from a TCU fan before the ball had bounced twice. The referee reminded the crowd not to call out until a point is complete, and play resumed, with Xilas holding at love to go up 6-5. Chan led 40-0 and it looked as if a tiebreaker would decide the point, but a series of errors, including a missed volley by Pedrico on the deciding point, gave Wake Forest a 7-5 set and a one point lead.
Wake's strong start in singles meant TCU needed to force third sets in two matches where they had dropped the first, and they got one of those splits from freshman Woestendick at line 5, against Tacchi, just as Pow was putting Wake Forest up 2-0 with a 6-2, 6-3 win over Pedrico at 6.
TCU pulled even with Maxted defeating freshman Charlie Robertson 7-5, 6-3 at line 3 and Vives, who had saved three set points in the first set tiebreak against Suresh, completing a 7-6(7), 6-3 victory.
Xilas made it 3-2 Wake, fighting off three set points in the second set tiebreaker against Chan at line 4 for a 6-2, 7-6(9) win.
Pinnington Jones had hung around after dropping a first-set tiebreaker to Dostanic and he seized one of the few opportunities Dostanic gave him, getting the break at 5-6 to force a third set.
In the meantime, Woestendick had taken a 5-3 lead in the third set against Tacchi and was able to close out that comeback, putting all eyes on Court 1, where a full third set would decide the National Championship.
Dostanic got an early break with Pinnington Jones serving a 1-1, and while that would normally be much too early to declare the match over, Dostanic played and served too well throughout the set, giving Pinnington Jones no openings.
"We host an ATP event and you could argue that was Top 100 level tennis there between those two guys," said Wake Forest head coach Tony Bresky, who took the head coaching position in 2011. "At that moment, the way Stef serves that out, I don't know what to say, that's what a pro does. It was unbelievable tennis, unbelievable from JPJ, too. He played maybe one or two bad points in his second service game and that was it."
Dostanic said he took to heart the advice he got from associate head coach Brian Baker on the changeover.
"At 5-4 I'm asking Bakes what do you think I should do," Dostanic said. "He told me, go for the patterns you know best, go for the serves you trust, have a high first serve percentage, don't let him see second serves, and don't back away. My best tennis is my 1-2, so I stuck to my guns and played my high percentage tennis."
In less than two months as a Demon Deacon, Dostanic has already fulfilled a dream.
"Coming to Wake, I knew they had a great team," Dostanic said. "This is what I wanted to do, play for a national title. I didn't think it would be a 3-all in the finals of National Indoors, but I'm very happy it did end like this."
Bresky, who led Wake to a first National Indoor title and a first NCAA title in 2018, joked in trophy presentation that there was a little too much purple in the stands, but appreciated the atmosphere which neared capacity throughout the three-and-a-half-hour match.
"You want to play in front of fans," Bresky said. "We had fans and felt their support, but it was nothing like TCU had here; having the seats filled is amazing for college tennis."
TCU head coach David Roditi pointed out in his remarks at the trophy ceremony that the last time TCU lost a Team Indoor final 4-3, which was last year's loss to Ohio State, the season ended with an NCAA championship.
"At the end of day, it was just a great college tennis match," said Roditi, whose teams won the 2022 and 2023 titles. "Amazing for the fans; they got their money's worth. So much purple. It obviously sucks to lose, but at the same time I feel like our program won today, with people coming out to share what these guys are doing. I'm bummed, because we're competitive, but at the same time I love what I saw today. We'd love to win all of them, but Stefan stepped up."
Doubles:
1. Stefan Dostanic and DK Suresh(WAKE) v Lui Maxted and Pedro Vives(TCU) 6-2
2. Jack Pinnington Jones and Cooper Woestendick(TCU) d. Luciano Tacchi and Luca Pow(WAKE) 6-4
3. Franco Capalbo and Ioannis Xilas(WAKE) d. Duncan Chan and Albert Pedrico(TCU) 7-5
Order of finish: 1, 2, 3
Singles:
1. Stefan Dostanic(WAKE) d. Jack Pinnington Jones(TCU) 7-6(3), 5-7, 6-4
2. Pedro Vives(TCU) d. DK Suresh(WAKE) 7-6(7), 6-3
3. Lui Maxted(TCU) d. Charlie Robertson(WAKE) 7-5, 6-3
4. Ioannis Xilas(WAKE) d. Duncan Chan(TCU) 6-2, 7-6(9)
5. Cooper Woestendick(TCU) d. Luciano Tacchi(WAKE) 3-6, 6-3, 6-4
6. Luca Pow(WAKE) d. Albert Pedrico(TCU) 6-2, 6-3
Order of finish:
6, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1
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