The men's tennis team went up against some of the top talent in the nation this past weekend at the National Team Indoors in Louisville, Ky. While the Blue Devils captured one close victory, the team fell on the short end of two other tight matches.
On Feb. 22, No. 11 Duke faced No. 6 Mississippi State, and fell in a hard-fought match to the Bulldogs, 4-3. The Blue Devils' doubles teams picked up the first point of the match, but junior Sven Koehler and senior Jordan Murray, at the third and sixth spots, respectively, were the only other Duke players who could pull out victories on the opening day of the tournament.
"We had chances-we were up 3-2 in that match," head coach Jay Lapidus said of the Mississippi State match. "Both Adam [Gusky] and Peter [Ayers] were still on the court. Adam had chances to break [Mississippi State's Kristian Broms] to serve for the team match. [Broms] came up with some big serves.
"We ended up going down, so it was kind of a frustrating one, to say the least."
Ayers fell at the fourth slot to Matt Pledger from Mississippi State, 6-4, 2-6, 6-4, while Gusky lost a tough three-setter at fifth singles to Broms, 6-3, 2-6, 7-6.
Three of the Bulldogs' points came from three-setters, so Duke was not pleased with its finish.
"I thought we really had them on the ropes-that was a good opportunity for us to have a big win," Lapidus said. "It just didn't come through in the end."
Despite the loss to Mississippi State, the Blue Devils bounced back the following day to down No. 22 Kansas 5-2 in a match that turned out to be remarkably similar to the Mississippi State match the previous day.
"I think we responded really well the next day-we came back against Kansas," Lapidus said. "[Kansas] is really a very good team, and we were down. It was basically the exact same situation in reverse the next day. We were down 3-2, and [freshman Dmitry Muzyka] and Rob Chess were out there battling and they ended up winning... We did unto them what Mississippi State did unto us the day before."
Chess, who is ranked 15th in the nation, came back to win his match in a third-set tiebreaker, downing 13th-ranked Enrique Abaroa, 7-5, 3-6, 7-6. Muzyka also downed a higher-seeded Victor Fimbres at second singles, 5-7, 7-6, 6-1. Muzyka has only achieved a No. 92 ranking, but the Jayhawk held the 36th ranking.
Although the win over Kansas was a bright spot for Duke, the team fell to No. 33 Harvard, 5-1, in the final match of the tournament, ending in a tie for 11th place. Even though their final standing matched the Blue Devils' ranking, the loss to the Crimson surprised Duke.
"Harvard is really a good team," Lapidus said. "They really surprised us. I didn't know much about their guys or anything. They were very good. They basically just outplayed us."
Even with the two losses over the weekend, Lapidus still feels that the weekend was not a wasted effort.
"Obviously we wanted to do better," he said. "We came out tied for 11th, and we went into it No. 11. We really didn't help ourselves, but I don't think we hurt ourselves badly. It's a kind of situation that you want to learn from it, that maybe every match is going to be a close one. Hopefully we'll get a little bit sharper. I just don't think we're playing our best yet."
One of the reasons Lapidus cited for the closeness of the matches over the weekend is the improvement of collegiate tennis on a national level.
"Everybody is so close," Lapidus said. "There's a lot of parity in college tennis. We just came out on the short end of a couple of real close matches. I thought the guys fought well. I think we're just going to be playing better as the year progresses."
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