Duke has a packed schedule ahead of them, sending players to compete in both Winston Salem and San Francisco this weekend.
In a split weekend, Duke will be sending redshirt senior Chris Mengel, senior Jason Tahir and junior Josh Levine to Winston Salem, N.C. for the Wake Forest Invitational. California natives, sophomore T.J. Pura and junior Daniel McCall are headed to San Francisco for the Battle of the Bay Classic.
For Levine, the Wake Invitational will be his first tournament of the season.
"It will be Josh’s first tournament, he’s coming off an injury to his hand that kept him out all summer but he’s been healthy and training hard and he’s excited to get out there and start completing,” head coach Ramsey Smith said.
Drawing on the best players from across the country, these tournaments give players the opportunity to improve their own personal rankings and gain valuable doubles skills. The Battle of the Bay Classic will allow Duke to face teams outside the ACC, featuring players from challenging west coast opponents such as USC, UCLA and Stanford.
In addition to fine tuning mechanics, Smith identifies doubles as an area that the team is focusing on in preparation for the spring season.
“Ultimately, the spring season is the most important part of the year and it’s our main focus but in order to be our best then, we need to improve in the fall,” Smith said.
These upcoming fall tournaments offer the team a chance to experiment with different doubles combinations in order to determine the optimal pairs going into the spring. With five players in their final year of eligibility, the Blue Devils have a lot of experience under their belts and many potential doubles combinations to work with.
“It’s a very experienced group that’s been through a lot of these tournaments and some of the normal adversities you face,” Smith said. “We have a couple guys that have been dealing with some small injuries so we’ve just been trying to get everyone healthy, but we’re certainly looking forward to these next two weekends,” Smith said.
The team has a jam-packed upcoming schedule, including the ITA Regional Qualifier, which the entire squad will be participating in next weekend in Cary, N.C.
Another important competition on the horizon is the ITA National Indoors, which is slated for Nov. 6. After a breakthrough performance, freshman Nicolas Alvarez qualified for the main draw, set to take place in Flushing Meadows, N.Y., in just his second collegiate tournament. Tahir is the only Blue Devil to reach the quarterfinals of the main draw since Smith did so when he played for Duke in 2000. Alvarez will look to add his name to this short list in two weeks.
Junior Bruno Semenzato also qualified for the ITA Main draw as a “lucky loser,” by being the second highest seed to lose in the final round of the qualifiers.
With their long term sights set on these big tournaments, Duke will look inward, focusing on continuing to improve each day, starting with this weekend.
“The ultimate goal for this fall is for each guy to get better, and that will get us better as a team,” Smith said.
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