The men's tennis team continued its seven-match winning streak Thursday afternoon as it rolled past South Alabama, 4-3.
The Blue Devils, ranked No. 10 nationally, squared off against the Jaguars, who are also ranked No. 10, in a key midseason matchup. Since Duke normally tends to dominate its competitors in the Atlantic Coast Conference, South Alabama provided the Blue Devils with a highly-ranked opponent to tangle with.
"I was just really happy [with the result]," head coach Jay Lapidus said. "Obviously going in, being tied for No. 10, we knew it was going to be a competitive match. I thought we played really well, especially in doubles."
The doubles contests started off on a good note for the Blue Devils, as freshman Dmitry Muzyka and junior Sven Koehler downed South Alabama's Johanness Saayman and Jaco Keyser at the No. 2 slot, 8-4. Even though Duke has struggled at the No. 3 doubles position for much of the season, junior Adam Gusky and freshman Jordan Wile came through with an 8-4 win over the Jaguars' Marius Swart and Johan Westburg. The No. 1 doubles contest was suspended after the Blue Devils claimed the doubles point.
"We played really good doubles," Lapidus said. "It was the first time all year I really felt good about third doubles. They played very well.
"We've been working a lot on their volleys at third doubles, and they came up with some great shots. I was really happy with that."
Duke took little time in finishing off South Alabama on the singles side, as the top three Blue Devils finished off their opponents in straight sets. Senior Rob Chess, ranked 11th nationally, downed No. 6 Jan Hermansson at the first singles slot. Chess rallied from an early 4-1 deficit in the opening set to take a 6-4, 6-2 win from Hermansson.
Koehler brought the score to 3-0 when he blasted past South Alabama's Nic Chisholm at No. 3 singles, 6-3, 6-2. Although the Jaguars picked up a point when Swart downed senior Peter Ayers at the fourth spot, Muzyka clinched the win for the Blue Devils as he cleared Saayman off the court in a 6-2, 6-2 decision.
"In singles, it was strange," Lapidus said. "We just went right through them at one, two and three.... It was a quick match. Even though it was 4-3, it was kind of a weird match. We were done by 5:15 and the match started at 2:30. For a 4-3 match, that's amazing."
After Muzyka's triumph assured a victory, Gusky and Wile fell in their respective matches at No. 5 and 6 singles.
The contest moves Duke to 12-4 on the year, while the Jaguars drop to 15-7. The win will also help the Blue Devils in the national rankings and postseason seedings.
"It's always nice to win a match," Lapidus said. "It feels good to be ranked high. We try to play our best and get better."
The Blue Devils, however, have little time to rejoice in their victory. Duke travels to Charlottesville, Va., this weekend to take on conference foes Virginia and Maryland, but it will also face the Jaguars a second time at UVa.
"We purposefully did that, because in the past years we've always come off the Blue Gray tournament and not really had a highly-ranked team to play against the rest of the year, just the ACC teams," Lapidus said. "So we felt like all the pressure was on us to do really well at the Indoors and also to do well at the Blue Gray. And if we didn't do well there, our season was kind of shot.
"We figured they'd be ranked in the top 10-12 range, and we wanted two real tough matches. The schedule had it that that was the only time we could play them twice," he said.
The Blue Devils take on Virginia Saturday at 1 p.m., and although the highlight of the weekend will be the rematch with South Alabama, the Cavaliers could put up a fight against Duke. The Terrapins, however, should not provide many problems for the Blue Devils.
"Virginia's pretty good," Lapidus said. "They're young and they're deep, so they'll be pretty good.
"[The match against South Alabama] will be interesting. I've never played a team twice this close together. This will be kind of interesting to see how this turns out. I'm sure they'll be pretty eager to play us again."
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