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Men's tennis
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Tennis teams wrap up undefeated ACC campaigns**
By JAMES CAVERLEE
On a blustery Saturday afternoon, the seventh-ranked men's tennis team squeaked by Clemson 4-3 to clinch the Atlantic Coast Conference regular season championship.
The Blue Devils (17-5 overall, 7-0 in the ACC) completed their second consecutive perfect ACC season. Under fourth-year head coach Jay Lapidus, the men's squad is now a combined 27-3 in regular season conference matches. This was also the Blue Devils' second straight undefeated regular season in the ACC.
Despite the team's past success, the Blue Devils had to struggle to get by a scrappy Clemson club which is ranked 36th in the nation.
"They're a feisty bunch of guys," junior Chris Pressley said. "I was really impressed with them."
Pressley, the nation's seventh-ranked singles player, combined with junior Philippe Moggio in a critical doubles match early in the day that proved to be the difference in the match.
With the other two Duke doubles team splitting their matches, Pressley and Moggio needed a win to give the Blue Devils a one-point advantage going into the singles matches -- the three doubles matches combine to count for only a single point.
"They have very good doubles and it almost cost us," Lapidus said.
Down two match points to the Clemson duo of Mike Williams and Brian Twente, Pressley and Moggio staged a dramatic rally to force a tie-breaker. The Duke pair then slipped past Clemson 8-6 in the tie-breaker to give the Blue Devils the win and the mental edge heading into the six singles matches
"I was happy with the way we fought," Pressley said. "We weren't really playing that well, but we just mentally stayed in there."
The singles matches started out well for the Blue Devils, who picked up two quick victories.
Sophomore Peter Ayers, playing at the No. 3 singles position, easily dispatched of his Clemson adversary, Bas Wild, in straight sets, 6-2, 6-3. At No. 4 singles, freshman Adam Gusky whipped Mitch Sfrengelmeyer 6-2, 6-4.
Those wins set the stage for Pressley to lock up the victory and first place in the ACC. Pressley, coming off an easy win against 12th-ranked David Caldwell of UNC earlier in the week, clinched the win with a solid 6-4, 6-3 victory.
"We came out in the singles and we started playing well on quite a few of the courts," Lapidus said. "We won the first three fairly handily."
The Blue Devils ran into trouble in the remaining singles matches, losing all three to the Tigers.
Clemson earned its first point of the day when Williams defeated Moggio at the No. 5 singles, 6-2, 6-4.
The Tigers followed this win with an upset of Rob Chess, Duke's nationally ranked No. 2 singles player.
Chess let a 5-4 first set lead over Cris Robinson slip away by dropping the final three games of the set.
In the second, Chess jumped out to a quick 3-0 lead before losing five games in a row. Robinson went on to win 7-5, 6-4.
In the final match of the day, sophomore Jordan Murray, lost 6-3, 6-7, 7-6 to Twente. Murray, playing with an injured back, trailed 2-5 in the third before rallying to force a third-set tie-breaker.
Murray ran out of steam, however and lost the set and the match.
The final two sets were marred by several heated exchanges between the umpire and Twente over several controversial foot-fault calls.
A combination of windy playing conditions and lack of intensity led to these Duke losses, according to Lapidus.
"The conditions were tough. . .it's hard to stay out there," Lapidus said. "It's hard to put in quite as much work when you know you've clinched the match."
Lapidus was quick to compliment his opponents, however.
"They're a team that really fights well," Lapidus said. "You know they're going to be there mentally."
Pressley agreed that the wind affected everyone's play.
"These conditions were really bad. There was a lot of wind," Pressley said. "[The key] was just to see who could handle the wind better and who was mentally tougher."
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