College tennis becoming an increasingly attractive option for international players—a fact that will be on full display this weekend at Ambler Tennis Stadium.
Duke returns home from a four-match road trip to host three matches in two days, beginning with Virginia Tech Friday at 3 p.m. The Blue Devils will continue their ACC slate with Louisville Sunday at noon before taking on cross-town foe N.C. Central at 5 p.m.
Between the four teams, five continents and 13 countries will be represented.
"Schools like Virginia Tech and Louisville, they really focus on some of the top international players. There’s so many good players in the world, and some play the ITF international circuit and the grand slams, and some don’t and you don’t really know that much about them," Duke head coach Ramsey Smith said. "The level of college tennis is so high—you’ve seen a lot of players in college tennis the past couple years go on and break in the top 150, 100, top 50 in the world.... That kind of puts college tennis on the map a little bit more from the international perspective."
The Blue Devils (8-9, 2-3 in the ACC) are certainly well-traveled after spending the past two weekends touring the East Coast and posting a 2-2 record against Miami, Florida State, Notre Dame and Boston College. Duke snapped a stretch of five straight matches dropping the doubles point against the Eagles, keyed by the play of freshmen Catalin Mateas and Vincent Lin on court one.
That strong doubles play will need to show up again Friday against the Hokies (11-4, 3-2), who boast the No. 7 doubles tandem of Joao Monteiro and Andreas Bjerrehus. The Brazilian and Dane are unbeaten in conference duals and head to Durham riding a six-match winning streak.
Monteiro highlights Virginia Tech's trio of ranked singles players at No. 21, and will likely square off against Duke's No. 19 Nicolas Alvarez on court one. The Lima, Peru, native took down Monteiro in a tight three-set match earlier this season at the ITA All-American Championships and, after sitting out of the Boston College match, will be full rested for a potential rematch Friday.
"[Monteiro is] a very clean ball-striker, can take the ball early, very good backhand. He’s had his best year in college by far," Smith said. "He’s made a big, big jump—he’s always been a very solid player, but he’s taken it to the next level and become an elite college player."
Like Duke, Louisville (9-11, 0-6) had to replace a slew of talented veterans from last year's squad, losing five of the Cardinals who took the court in the NCAA tournament. The result has been a Louisville squad still looking to put all the pieces together as its six freshmen—three of whom are international—get acclimated to college tennis.
Senior Alex Gornet has played nearly all the matches on court one for the Cardinals, but is 0-5 against nationally ranked opponents, a potential problem with Alvarez likely awaiting the Louisville, Ky., native Sunday afternoon.
"They have a lot of guys that aren’t there anymore—similar to us, a lot of freshmen, a bunch of guys I haven’t really seen play that much," Smith said. "I’ve gotten a couple scouting reports on them, but they’re young and hungry and dangerous. They’re not ranked right now but they have a lot of good players and they’re going to be excited to play us."
The second half of Sunday's doubleheader against the Eagles (1-9) was originally scheduled for Jan. 31 but had to be pushed back. N.C. Central's current roster has just five players, meaning only two doubles matches and five singles matches will be contested. Ecuador product Gabriel Cucalon is the lone Eagle with a winning ledger, going 6-4 so far at the No. 2 singles spot.
"It’s hard to have three doubles teams with five guys. They had a tough situation where they graduated some guys, a couple guys weren’t eligible at the last minute, so it’s been a rough year for them," Smith said. "Last year was one of the best years they’ve had, and Curtis Lawson has done a great job of building that program. I feel for him because he’s had a tough situation just with number of players."
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