Too Bad Terps

We just completed our last weekend of traveling before ncaas- sooooooooooooo happy!!! I think we were getting a little sick of planes, airports, hotels, and emailing teachers about having to miss more of their classes. Despite these minor issues, we had a wonderful weekend of tennis! We played Maryland on Friday afternoon, and the weather was nice so we were all very glad to be playing outside. I think we had the fastest doubles match I have ever seen in my four years! Amanda and I had the longest match and our score was 8-1. So, needless to say, we had a lot of momentum going into singles. The courts were split up, and I played in between Amanda and Jess, so I did not see what happened with Mallory, Ellah, and Reka, but by the speed and scores of their matches, I assume they played pretty well. Combined, they only lost 9 games. On my left, Amanda made quick work of her opponent and had the support of her family and friends who were able to come watch. On my right, Jess, who also had her dad and aunt behind her, played a few close games in the first set but then pulled away in the second and finished the day up with a nice victory. My match went pretty smoothly and I won 6-1, 6-2. 

I think it was important for us to go out there with a lot of intensity and drive to play like we know we can play, so that we have the confidence needed for the remainder of our season. We have some tough acc matches coming up, so this weekend was great for us to build off of. If anyone is reading this, please come support us this weekend and next weekend for our first acc home matches!!! 

Until next time...

DWT! LET'S GO DUKE!

Down with the Terps

            Finally, a break in the weather gave us the chance to play at least part of a dual match on the outdoor courts of Ambler Tennis Stadium.  We came in somewhat banged up for our last regular season home match of the year.  Torsten is still nursing his knee injury, Kiril wasn’t able to play after falling on his wrist yesterday against Boston College, and Reid had to fight through an seriously aching back to get through doubles and singles. 

            We started off decently in the doubles, with a pretty unfamiliar set of teams at two and three, Reid and I being the only intact team from our previous matches.  We started off well, with Reid and I getting off to a very good start, and Carp and Al also getting off to a quick start.  But things started deteriorating rather quickly, with Al and Carp trying to stave off their Terrapin adversaries, and Holland and Pinsky having to pull through some tight games to finally clinch it and put us up 1-0 heading into singles.

            Singles wasn’t all too simple an affair either.  We had a couple fast starts with Reid and I taking quick first sets, but Maryland kept at us until the very end.  I was able to put my match away before the rain forced us inside, but then a serious concern arose when Reid seemed to have even more seriously injured his back when he was up a set and 4-1.  After getting some treatment from the trainer he toughed it out indoors to run off two more games for a 6-0, 6-2 victory, though not without a few grimaces of pain.  We then dropped our first singles match, putting the score at 3-1 with three matches still on court.  It got particularly tense when I looked at the scoreboard and we were losing on one of the courts of the three courts, and at the start of a third set on the other two…

            Fortunately things worked out, but it wasn’t easy.  Luke got yet another consecutive victory, and Holland gutted out a tight third setter to bring the overall score to 5-2.  It was good that we got the win, but it didn’t come without some hiccups and few things we need to get better with.  With UNC on our plate Tuesday, we’ll need to be all there in every possible way.  But hey, we got the W, and at the end of the day, that’s what counts.  You still learn when you win in spite of a sub-optimum performance, but it’s a lot less painful and less sleep inhibiting.  But credit also goes to Maryland, as they gave us all we could handle and they deserve recognition for it.  UNC, then UVA, then Virginia Tech…It’s going to be a long week ahead, but hopefully a very gratifying one as well.  Thanks for reading, and thanks for all your support, we hope to have some great news to write about after this week.

Dylan Arnould

I’ve spent the last two years losing to Wake Forest.  My freshmen year we lost at home, and then last year we lost a 4-3 match at their facility (which only has five courts instead of six, don’t even get me started on that).  Even so, this time was probably the worst start I’ve ever had against them as a team.  We got flattened in doubles in what seemed like five minutes.  They won 8-1, 8-3, and 8-4.  They must have thought they were going to roll over us in no time at all. 

 

Now fast forward about an hour and a half, and Duke has already clinched the match with Luke’s last point, only right after Reid just served out his match.  It was one of the fastest dual matches of the year for us (even though it did end 4-3).  What happened? Why after thirty minutes into the singles matches was Wake suddenly scrambling to regain even a whisper of the momentum that they had a stranglehold on just a half hour before?

           

I’m going to hold off on the details of all that transpired, but I’ll just say that the way we came out of the locker room was something that Wake had never seen from us before, and I’m not even sure we’d seen it yet this year from ourselves.  It was quick, it was fun, and it was damn gratifying to finally be able to send the Demon Deacons packing, hopefully not for the last time.

Luke "Ron Burgundy" Marchese

Yesterday the Duke men’s tennis team earned undoubtedly its most satisfying victory of the season. Coming off two hard fought ACC losses in our own house, it was quite clear that the outcome of this match would depend on sheer will. And after the doubles point, it appeared as if our ACC woes would continue. We were absolutely outhustled and outplayed for the point, leaving the entire team feeling lost and dejected going into the intermission. But an inspirational locker room meeting led by some of our seasoned veterans was all it took to fuel our most inspired performance of the season. And an hour and forty minutes later, the win was clinched. In the words of the great Herb Nebauer, “A.D.V... Another Duke Victory.” Now we are looking forward to these weekend’s home contests against Boston College and Maryland.

Stay Classy Duke Fans,

Luke

Coach's Corner - Wake Forest

Hello All,

First off, sorry for not having any blogs posted as of late. There should be quite a few coming around in the next couple of days.

Wake Forest- For any of you that were there, that was by far our worst doubles of the year. It was horrible, flat, lack-luster, heartless, gutless, and many more adjectives that I cannot express in this PG-rated blog. So what do you do as a coach at that point to get your team back on track? 

Well, before going into the locker room to meet with the guys prior to singles, Ramsey (fuming with smoke coming out of his ears) came over to me.

He asked, "So how do we deal with this?" 

My answer wasn't exactly how but more what we needed to see from the guys, "We need to have the guys get behind one another right now. They need to do this for themselves but more importantly for each other. There needs to be a reason to win this match." 

He responded, "Good. I agree. I only have one thing to say and them I'm out of there." 

Ramsey and I proceeded to walk into the locker room and saw the boys with their heads in their hands with an expectant look that they were going to be "lit up". After about a minute of silence, Ramsey, KJ and I spoke only a few words and then left. Whether it was the message or how concise it was (who knows? maybe both) the boys rallied behind each other. They decided to take it upon themselves to win the match.  They came out of the locker room with the eyes of inspired warriors, all 10 of them. 

When I saw them, I told KJ that we were going to be just fine. Ramsey and I chose not to go on the courts until the latter parts of the first sets. We wanted the boys to win it on their own to show them that it is all about them and how they prepare mentally for these matches. The best part of it all was that it wasn't only won by the guys on the courts, it was won by all 10 of them. 

Luke said it best about Carp and the boys upstairs,  "You gave me an edge that was huge. I felt like it was 2 on 1. It was the first time in my tennis career that I felt that unconditional support that I came to college for." 

So all in all, the team made a huge jump yesterday. Not in the level of their games, but as a team and that's what wins championships. It was great to see and so much fun to be a part of. 

Thanks for all of the support.

Miami

Sunday was a hard fought day for the Lady Blue Devils. Under the scorching noon sun we began our battle against the Miami Hurricanes. Jess and I started off slow in our doubles match and were too far down when we began our hard fought comeback. We lost 8-5. Whose match went fairly similar to ours and next to finish was Melissa and Amanda losing 8-4. Reka and Ellah pulled their match out with an 8-6 victory, but unfortunately we had already lost the doubles point. We take our ten minute break to reapply sunscreen and get pumped up for singles. We have been down 1-0 before going into singles and have been victorious in the end. We know that we are going to have to deal with more than just the sun and wind today. Miami has very obnoxious fans who really get into the matches. We are all mentally prepared for any distractions that might come our way and know that we just need to focus on what we can control in our matches. (attitude, fight, composure, etc) Well, I am not proud to say that I was the first one off the court losing 6-3, 6-3 to fellow junior competitor, Julia Cohen. Not one of my finer and entertaining matches. Though soon after Jess came off the court with a beautiful 6-1, 6-3 victory over the girl who had defeated her in the deciding match last year. Way to be mentally tough Jess!!! Next off was Melissa who played aggressive to come up with a 6-3, 6-4 win to tie the score at 2-2. Our last three matches are close with Ellah, Amanda, and Reka. Ellah had a tough match, but fought till the end, before barely losing 7-6, 6-4. Her opponent was very obnoxious and fed off the crowd for her intensity. Ok, so now we are down 2-3 with 2 matches left to go. Amanda had won a hard fought first set 6-4 after coming back from being 3-0 down. Though she lost the second set 6-0, the third set was a battle. Amanda fought till the very end but fell just short of the winners circle losing the thrid set 7-5. That had been the deciding match. Duke had lost 4-2 to Miami, but Reka was still battling it out on her court. After winning her first set 6-4, she lost her second fairly quickly 6-1. We weren't worried though because we all know that Reka will stay out on the court all day if that's what it takes for her to win. She played her heart out but was defeated 7-6 (7-5) in the deciding set tiebreaker. 5-2 Hurricanes. :( It was a very disappointing and unsatisfying day for us, but we learned from our matches and know what we need to improve to gain revenge at our next Hurricane encounter. We are headed off to play NC State on Wednesday, where we are fired up to continue our ACC matches!!! We have quite a stretch of matches to come, but we are hungry to win and are ready to put our losses behind us.

Let's go Duke!!!!!

Mal

Let the ACC matches BEGIN: Florida State

Aaaaaannnd here we go: the crazy schedule has officially begun. ACC season has started. To kick it all off, we travelled to Florida, namely Tallahassee, to take on the Florida State Seminoles. This time of year is never easy...the classes missed start to rack up, and the grumblings of unhappy professors do not help the stress levels, but, for those few crucial hours of our matches, we can put academics aside, and focus JUST on tennis. Today, our match was scheduled for 4 PM, even though it said  3 PM on our schedule for some reason (JAMIE!!!), which meant a looong day. After a hefty breakfast as usual for me (I will spare the description of the epic amount of food consumed) we hit the courts at 10:45 for a short warm-up, so we wouldn't be sitting around all day. Then we paid a visit to our favorite ever-present sandwich shop, Jimmy John's, whose reliable sandwiches we simply cannot have enough of... although lately, Jersey Mike has been giving Jimmy a run for his money in terms of team popularity...

After lunch, we went back to the court for our ACTUAL warm-up, which was actually quite uneventful, and went smoothly as usual. And THEN the matches began. Florida State is historically always a tough team, and is one of those awful places to play; the crowd jeers and screams, and most of the players get super-pumped and start yelling all sorts of strange things into your face. Thus, it was very helpful when we won the doubles point, with our clutch duos of Jess/Mal and Melis/Amanda emerging victorious to clinch our doubles. Elz and I had a little mini-comeback but ended up not winning in the end, but at least made them SWEAT REALLY REALLY hard to beat us. So, overall, we went into the singles on a good note.

The singles was hard-fought on each court, and we ended victoriously on most courts...Amanda was an absolute beast, beating her opponent in approximately 7 seconds, and putting us ahead 2-0 in the match. Jess was next to finish, losing a tough match to a strong opponent. I didn't get to see any of her match, but in the one point I saw, Jess smacked an overhead winner, which was ridiculously huge, and inspired me to win the next game in my own match, which made me the 3rd match to finish. I was SO happy to win because my opponent had this whole CROWD watching her, and they literally bellowed every time she won a point...which was fine, until they started screaming for my double faults, which I thought was a little much. Ellah, my roomate/doubles partner/fellow sophomore was the clincher, beating her French freshman in straight sets, and improving her spring record to an UNDEFEATED 12-0. Get it girl, get it get it girlll!! The last two matches to finish were Melis (in straight) and Mal (in three sets), who both had annoyingly streaky opponents, making it difficult to get a rhythm, but they both pulled it out, to give us on overall 6-1 win. Not a bad way to start out the ACC matches!

Till next time...LET'S GO DUKE!!!

-Reka

Notre Dame

Thursday was a tough day for Duke Women's Tennis. We lost to Notre Dame 5-2. Prior to this we had only one loss this season to Northwestern at the National Indoors. We had been doing extremely well and quickly rising to the number three national ranking, the highest ranking our team has achieved for quite some time. Presently, we are on spring break and have been practicing all week for this match up against the Irish, who are right behind us as the number four ranked team. I felt our team was intense during our practices and was ready to compete. We focused intensely on doubles drills because capturing the doubles point in a dual match is crucial to the momentum needed for the singles matches. Fortunately, we were able to win the doubles point. Jess and Mal played great and won their match at #2 , scoring 8-5, before Reka and I clinched it with a score of 8-6 at #3. Singles, however, was not as successful as doubles; we lost five of our six singles matches. I was first off the court winning my match 6-2, 6-2. I felt I played well and was relieved to be off the court quickly. After I got off the court, I was able to watch and cheer for my teammates, who collectively were in close matches on every court. Even though our team did not come out on top, everyone fought until the last point and gave it their best effort. I think in this situation, we just have to give Notre Dame credit because after losing the doubles point, they were fired up and simply outplayed us. Although we were all very disappointed with the loss, it is not the end for our team. We are a resilient group of players and will be back on the road this coming Thursday, traveling back to Florida to begin ACC matches against Florida State and University of Miami. Upon completion of this Thursday's matches, everyone got a little break: some going home, others visiting Disney to relax and enjoy the remainder of spring break. Today we return to the court to begin practice and rebound from our upset. A couple of days of rest, practice and fine tuning a few areas in our game, will provide us with the energy and tools needed to compete this weekend. Thanks for reading about our spring break competition.