It was disappointing enough for the third-seeded men's tennis team that they failed to capture the ACC Tournament title for only the fourth time in Jay Lapidus' 14 years as head coach. It is even more disappointing that the loss came to second-seeded rival Virginia in the semifinals.
Saturday, against the Cavaliers, the Blue Devils just could not get it going at any point during the 4-0 loss.
"We wanted to beat them bad," sophomore Jonathan Stokke said. Stokke missed the match after sustaining a wrist injury against Wake Forest in the quarterfinal round.
"Virginia has been playing well and with a lot of confidence," Stephen Amritraj wrote in an e-mail. "But I do not think we played our A game today, and the loss of Stokes [Stokke] I think hurt us a bit as well."
Without Stokke, the doubles lineup was revamped, but Duke could not pull out the first point of the match. After Ludovic Walter and Peter Rodrigues won at No. 3 and Jason Zimmermann and Amritraj fell at No. 1, both by the score of 8-5, Senior Phillip King and junior Peter Schults lost the deciding doubles match 9-8 (7-5).
While the doubles matches were close, the singles competition was far from it. Virginia captured three straight-set victories, with King, Zimmermann and Brown losing at No. 1, No. 3 and No. 5, respectively. Walter, Rodrigues and Schults did not finish.
"In the Virginia match I wasn't on top of my game," Zimmermann said. "We started a little sluggish in doubles and we lost a tough doubles point. In the singles matches, everybody fought really hard, just no one was able to come out on top today."
Against the Demon Deacons Friday, Duke came out hot in the doubles and continued to play well in singles, ultimately taking the match 4-1. The bottom two doubles positions claimed victories for the Blue Devils, as Zimmermann and Amritraj made quick work of their opponents at No. 2, winning 8-1. Walter and Rodrigues clinched the doubles point with an 8-5 triumph at No. 3.
In singles, Rodrigues, a freshman from Estoril, Portugal, claimed the first singles win at No. 4 by the count of 6-3, 6-1. With Stokke forced to retire, and the team score closed to 2-1, Walter and Zimmermann pulled out three-set victories to seal the match. King and sophomore No. 6 Chris Brown did not finish their matches.
With only the NCAA Tournament left in the 2004 season, the team had mixed emotions about losing the ACC Tournament.
"Losing in the ACC [Tournament] is obviously very upsetting," Amritraj said. "But the whole season, winning [the] NCAA [Tournament] has been our main goal."
Zimmermann felt the team could do a lot to improve before the NCAA Tournament.
"The main thing we need to do is get out there and practice as much as we can," Zimmermann said. "Everybody needs to be focused, we need to give our best effort, and then I think we will have a good shot at doing well [in the NCAAs].
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