There was not much doubt to the men's tennis team's victory yesterday afternoon. The conclusion was so far gone yesterday in the Sheffield Tennis Center that Jay Lapidus' young son contented himself to making paper airplanes out of the handouts.
For Duke (14-3, 5-0 in the ACC), it was the 38th straight ACC victory as it dropped Florida State (9-10, 4-3) 7-0, despite being third in the conference.
"We just talked about improving in certain areas," Duke coach Jay Lapidus said. "We worked on doubles, on being more aggressive as a team. We work on how well we can work, on how well we can play, how badly we can beat opponents. When we have that kind of challenge, it's not boring."
Florida State, off to a bad start, dropped all three doubles matches. Lapidus singled out Andres Pedroso and Alex Bose at No. 3 doubles as a team to watch, noting that although the combination was only recently assembled, the pair looked good. They shut down Romain Jurd and Jerrod Owen 8-0 in their match.
At singles, the match got no better for the Seminoles as five out of six Duke players stomped in just two sets.
"I think we competed pretty well against Duke," said Florida State coach Dwayne Hultquist of the shutout. "They're one of three or four teams that are favorites to win the national championship. Even some of their players lower in the lineup are nationally ranked."
Meanwhile, after shutting out Bartosz Koldej in the first set, Duke's Andres Pedroso dropped the second set 5-7. The Duke senior picked up in the final set, however, coasting to a 6-1 victory and his 100th career singles victory.
Friday afternoon, Duke defeated No. 26 Virginia Commonwealth 5-1 as well. In both matches, Ramsey Smith started at No. 1 singles.
No. 9 Phillip King, who did not play Sunday, defeated Frank Moser 5-7, 6-3, 6-2 Friday after dropping his first ACC match to Wake Forest earlier last week.
Lapidus was not too worried about any lulls for King.
"Phillip's too solid a player and too good a kid," he said. "He has a bunch of good days after a bad day. I have total confidence he's going to come out and win matches for us."
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.