The men's tennis team took two big wins and one loss in its tour of California over spring break. The No. 21 Blue Devils (5-8) swept UC-Irvine 7-0, hit a speed bump against UCLA in a 6-1 loss on their way to upending No. 6 Pepperdine 4-3.
"Pepperdine was a really good win. On the other hand, it's not like we blew out the competition either," sophomore Philip King said. "I know we're a good team, but I think we could have done better."
In a hard-fought match against Pepperdine Friday, Duke freshman Jason Zimmerman's singles victory at No. 3 clinched the win for Duke. Zimmerman defeated Calle Hansen in a match that went into a second set tiebreaker, 6-4, 7-6.
"There was only one match left and theirs was really close," King said. "[Zimmerman] really knows how to play. He almost lost the second match. There was a point when he was down in the second set, but he played two really good and smart points and just fought his way back. Nobody told him [the match was in a tie situation] because we didn't want to put pressure on him."
The rest of the Blue Devils also struggled in singles competition, with junior Michael Yani taking a loss to Stefan Suter at No. 2 that ended in a tiebreaker 6-4, 7-5. At No. 1, King defeated Al Garland 6-4, 7-5. Freshman Peter Shults fell to Johan Berg at No. 6, 7-5, 6-2. Juniors Joel Spicher and Yorke Allen defeated their opponents Diego Acuna, 6-2, 6-1 and Steve Racioppi, 6-3, 6-3 at Nos. 4 and 5, respectively.
'[Pepperdine] only had two rows and three courts, and our three courts were all winning,' King said. 'I was expecting us to be winning and then all of a sudden, I realized we were in a tie and it came down to the last match and Joel and Yorke won pretty handily.'
Against UC-Irvine Monday, the Blue Devils completely swept the singles matches and gained the doubles point with wins at Nos. 2 and 3.
There was also a change in the doubles lineup, as King and Zimmerman played at No. 1, while Yani and Shults competed at No. 2. The King/Zimmerman match was the only one Duke lost, as the pair fell to Brian Morton and Jon Endrikat, 8-4.
'At No. 1, Yani and I were doing great, but you can't win No. 1 and lose No. 2,' King said. 'So we sacrificed the one spot to try and win the two spot, but that was a disaster. We need to figure out what to do with Nos. 2 and 3 doubles because what we have is not working. I don't think Yani and I will switch [again]. We are basically set at No. 1 and we've had a lot of top-10 wins. We started off a little slow, but now we're doing well.'
UCLA swept all three doubles matches Wednesday to gain the doubles point and King lost at No. 1 singles to Tobias Clemens. After losing the first set 3-6, King forced a third set by winning the second set 6-3. Clemens won the third set in a 7-5 tiebreaker to clinch the victory.
Yani was the only other Duke player to take a win against UCLA in singles as he defeated Jean-Julien Roger in a quick match, 6-3, 6-1.
'Everybody's kind of down about UCLA,' King said. 'We didn't play that well that day.'
The men's tennis team takes the court next at Maryland Saturday.
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