While there is one coach who seems to get most of the recognition here at Duke, the job that men's tennis coach Jay Lapidus has done should not go unnoticed, as the Blue Devils defeated No. 14 Texas Christian Friday and No. 30 University of Miami (Fl.) Sunday to give Lapidus 300 career victories. During his tenure, Lapidus has amassed a record of 300-87 (.775), won ten ACC championships, and led Duke to top-25 finishes in 13 of his 14 years in Durham.
"I didn't even know," Lapidus said of the landmark, following the win over Miami. "The guys told me, so it was nice, [but] it was just another match."
In Friday's victory over TCU (13-4), the contest appeared much closer than the final score of 6-1 would indicate. Duke (16-5) took the doubles point, with the first victory coming from the aggressive No. 1 doubles team of Ludovic Walter and Jason Zimmerman, who won 8-6. The clinching doubles point came from the No. 2 team of Phillip King and Jonathan Stokke, as King put away an overhead slam to end the match, also by the score 8-6.
Singles play was hotly contested as nighttime approached and the weather cooled significantly. King, a senior ranked seventh in the country, claimed victory when his opponent retired due to an ankle injury in the second set, withthe score 6-0, 1-0 at that point. Next to finish was Duke No. 3 Peter Rodrigues, a freshman from Portugal, who lost to Hector Almada by a final of 6-3, 6-0. Chris Brown, playing the sixth spot for the Blue Devils, was down 4-0 in the first set before coming back strong to win 7-5, 6-4.
"I think I started out the match cold because I wasn't playing doubles," Brown said. "I just tried to keep on fighting. The match could've gone another way. I mean, he was up 4-5 with three set points, so I just kept hanging in there."
Walter, a sophomore from France, was able to clinch the match with a 6-3, 0-6, 6-4 victory in a battle of two long-haired men. Zimmerman and Stokke then completed their matches by winning 10-point tiebreakers that replaced the third sets.
Against Miami (11-5) Sunday, Duke took control right from the start and never looked back, again winning 6-1. The Blue Devils swept the doubles with ease, winning by scores of 8-3, 8-1, and 8-2 at No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3, respectively.
"I know that our doubles [are] very strong, and their coach said that their doubles wasn't very strong this year," Lapidus said.
The singles started similarly to the TCU match, with No. 3 Rodrigues taking the first set 6-1 before his opponent retired due to a stomach injury. King, using a relentless baseline game, then defeated Miami No. 1 Josh Cohen 6-0, 6-2.
"It was weird because we thought this was going to be a really tough match," King said. "But after seeing that Wake Forest beat them 6-1, and [because] we know we're better than Wake Forest, when we came out we knew we were going to win."
Zimmerman then clinched the match by winning easily, 6-3, 6-0. During a point near the end of the match, Zimmerman made an impossible forehand stab and then retrieved a drop shot by lobbing the ball over his opponent's head for a winner.
"I played pretty solid, tried not to give away too many points," Zimmerman said. "I'm just trying to improve mentally, trying to stay more focused on the court [and] not give away too many free points."
Walter, the nation's 12th ranked player, had a relatively easy match until the end, fighting off No. 93 Eric Hechtman by a score of 6-0, 6-4. Brown then won in a third set decided by a ten-point tiebreaker, with a final of 6-4, 1-6, 10-7. Stokke then lost a match that did not affect the outcome 7-6 (5), 7-5.
Duke will take on North Carolina at home Wednesday in the Ambler Tennis Stadium at 2:00 p.m. The Blue Devils need to win if they hope to stay alive in the ACC regular season championship race, as the Tar Heels are undefeated in conference play.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.