Duke kicked off the spring season by hosting the first-ever Duke Invitational this weekend at the Sheffield Indoor Tennis Center.
The 16th-ranked Blue Devils welcomed No. 10 North Carolina, No. 21 Michigan and No. 53 Elon for a round-robin tournament preceding the beginning of dual- match play later this week.
"This tournament was a really nice way to start the season" head coach Jay Lapidus said. "It gave us a chance to all be on the court at the same time and have a dual-match feeling without it actually counting as a dual match."
Duke amassed a 19-10 record in singles and 5-8 record in doubles play on the weekend.
Junior Kiril Dimitrov beat the top competitors from each of the visiting schools to win the singles championship. After defeating No. 72 Damon Gooch of Elon 6-4, 7-6 (3) and No. 55 Jason Jung of Michigan 6-2, 3-6, 6-4, Dimitrov came from behind to beat North Carolina's Benjamin Carlotti 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 in a three-hour battle.
"Kiril is just so good mentally," Lapidus said. "He grinds people down and he finds a way to win those matches a lot."
Freshman Reid Carleton and sophomore Aaron Carpenter also garnered perfect 3-0 records in singles play for Duke and Carleton paired with Dimitrov to post a 2-1 record in doubles.
The Blue Devils will look to improve in their doubles play in order to offer a balanced threat in dual matches.
"Our doubles was not too great this weekend, and we're going to have to work on that the next couple of days and see if we can shore that up a little bit," Lapidus said. "I think if we can get our doubles looking better, our singles [play] is going to be really good."
The team will be tested next in its first dual match of the season Jan. 26 against Elon.
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