The men's tennis team opened its season with a 5-2 victory over Virginia Tech in Greensboro, despite missing one of its top players.
Senior Peter Ayers, who pairs with classmate Rob Chess to form the Blue Devils' No. 1 doubles team, was unable to compete because of illness on Thursday afternoon. Ayers' absence caused some shuffling around in both the doubles and the singles lineups.
"With Peter not playing, it added sort of another level of difficulty to the whole situation," head coach Jay Lapidus said. "It made life a little tougher on us... I thought the guys responded well."
Freshman Dmitry Muzyka and junior Sven Koehler were bumped to the No. 1 doubles slot, where they downed the Hokies' Oliver Mayo and Mark Pfeil, 8-4. Junior Adam Gusky and senior Jordan Murray fell to Virginia Tech's Aaron Marshetti and Mark Tepes 8-6, while the improv doubles team of Chess and freshman Jordan Wile dropped the No. 3 doubles contest to Andrew Kraft and Chad Toleafoa.
"The doubles were not very good," Lapidus said. "But it was hard because at the last second we were just throwing teams together and everything was a little bit confused and disorganized going into the doubles, so I'm happy the way we came out in singles."
Duke made up for the loss of the doubles point by capturing five out of the six singles matches from the Hokies. Chess rallied in a three-setter to defeat Mayo, who is ranked No. 71 nationally.
"Rob Chess had a good win," Lapidus said. "[Mayo] beat Chris Pressley last year when we played. He's real good. Rob really fought through a good match."
Muzyka, the freshman from the Ukraine, stepped in at the No. 2 slot to defeat Marshetti, 7-6, 7-6. His winning effort was joined by Wile, another freshman for the Blue Devils. Wile captured a victory at the sixth singles slot.
"Dmitry played a great match at No. 2," Lapidus said. "He played a really good player. The freshmen came through. Jordan Wile found out at the last minute he was in there playing. He did a super job filling in there at six."
Koehler and Murray also picked up points for Duke at the third and fifth spots, respectively. Koehler breezed past Pfeil, 6-1, 6-3, while Murray took three sets to finish off Tepes, 6-4, 4-6, 7-5.
Gusky dropped the lone singles match on the day, falling to Kraft, 6-4, 7-6.
The Blue Devils continue play Saturday at the Chapel Hill Tennis Club, taking on 17th-ranked Virginia Commonwealth. Ayers should be ready to play for Duke by the weekend.
"He should be OK by Saturday," Lapidus said. "We're going to be mixing [the players around at] two, three and four. Peter will be in that range somewhere. I'm trying to move it around so the other teams don't match up against us."
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