Two members of the men's tennis team headed to Dallas this past week to play in the Rolex Intercollegiate Indoor Championships. Senior Chris Pressley and junior Rob Chess were Duke's sole representatives at the third leg of the collegiate grand slam.
"Chris has been playing well lately, but we'll have to see how he does with his pulled hamstring," head coach Jay Lapidus said before the tournament. "Rob is very good on this quick surface. He's very comfortable playing on it."
Pressley, who chose not to play in last week's Atlantic Coast Conference Indoor tournament so that he could rest his pulled hamstring and sore ankle, was seeded seventh.
"It was the first time I had played on [the hamstring] so I was taking it easy. It was not a good week because of my injured ankle and hamstring, and on top of that I had a head cold," Pressley said.
He beat Kevin Epley of SMU in the first round, 7-5, 6-3 before falling to unseeded Eddie Jacques of Georgia, 6-7, 6-4, 6-4.
"It was a tough match, but I had my chances," Pressley said. "It came down to a few points here and there. I wasn't moving well. Both my ankle and hamstring were tight. My game revolves around my movement, and without it my game really suffers."
Meanwhile, Chess, who entered the tournament unseeded, pulled out a few close three-set matches.
"I got into the tournament at the last minute, and I didn't think I was mentally prepared," Chess said.
He drew sixth-seeded Jeff Salzenstein of Stanford in the first round and defeated him 7-5, 3-6, 6-1. The following day he won a tie-breaker in the third set to beat 15th-seeded Gil Kovalski of Miami.
"I wasn't tired because [Coach Lapidus] has been working on conditioning, so I felt that was a bonus," Chess said. "I thought I could outlast him."
Chess played his quarterfinal match against the No. 1 seed, Sarges Sargsian, where he lost, 6-0, 6-4.
"I felt pretty good because I had pulled out two close matches, and I had nothing to lose," Chess said. "I came out slowly, and when I started to get going, it was too late. He hardly made any errors.
"I was a little disappointed, but it was a good tournament overall."
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