The men's tennis team put on a strong showing at this weekend's ACC Indoor Championships played at Wake Forest University in Winston Salem. Freshman Ludovic Walter, the second-seed in singles competition, was the Blue Devils' top competitor, losing to top-seeded David Loewenthal of Wake Forest in the finals of the singles competition, 6-3, 6-4.
After just an hour rest following a difficult semifinal against Florida State's Matt Cloer, Walter took the court again to face Loewenthal. Walter got off to a slow start, failing to hold serve en route to dropping the first three games of the match.
His play picked up, however, and continued into the second set. Walter came out firing, matching Loewenthal stroke-for-stroke to four games a piece, when Loewenthal broke Walter's serve after facing a love-40 deficit in the game. Loewenthal, ranked 35th nationally, went on to serve out the match and claim the singles title.
"I think he is capable of beating that guy," head coach Jay Lapidus said. "If he was really fresh mentally he would have beat him the majority of the time. I have no concerns about his mental ability during the season."
In the semifinal, Walter struggled to a 6-4, 7-5 victory over Matt Cloer of Florida State. The two played a tight match, with each player booming serves and playing opportunistic tennis. Walter came through with a pair of breaks, however, and was able to outduel the Seminole.
"My serve was really good," Walter said. "He started to make some mistakes and I broke him."
In other action, freshman Jonathan Stokke reached the round of 16 where he was defeated by Florida State's Chip Webb in three sets. Classmate Christopher Brown also won his first two matches but fell to Loewenthal in the quarterfinals.
Sophomore Peter Schults eeked out a victory over Virginia's Darrin Cohen in three sets before succumbing to Wake Forest's Brett Ross in another three-set marathon, losing 6-4, 6-7, 7-6. Junior Ryan Heinberg also split a pair of matches, downing North Carolina's Andy Metzler prior to losing to third-seeded Doug Stewart of Virginia.
Blue Devils Stephen Amritraj, Stefan Rozycki and Yorke Allen were all eliminated in the first round of the tournament.
In doubles, Amritraj and Shults ousted a Seminole tandem, 8-6, and then lost to a pair from Wake Forest by the same score. Brown and Rozycki fell to a duo from Florida State. Duke's top doubles tandems were unable to compete, however, because of injuries. Sophomore Jason Zimmerman, who was paired up with Stokke, was injured and forced to withdraw from the singles and doubles draws of the tournament. The tandem was the top-seed in the competition. Junior David Goldstein was also injured and forced to pull out, thus eliminating his doubles partnership with Walter.
"All the guys played against good players and didn't have bad matches," Walter said. "Everyone was fighting well. I think everyone is ready for the season now."
The squad will be back in action at 2:30 p.m. Thursday when they begin dual match play at the Sheffield Indoor Tennis Center.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.