Long Overdue Men's Update

Hopefully this posting will mark the end of the drought of postings from the men’s team, and a beginning of a steady and thoughtful series of posts throughout the rest of the season (and some pictures and videos as well).

Forgive the lack of flare in this initial posting, but I feel that I must provide a little factual background since this is the first DMT post in quite a long time.

This past Friday, the Duke Men’s Tennis (DMT) took on #12 Illinois, followed by a double header against Notre Dame and NCCU on Sunday. The Illinois match was packed with people, and we owe all supporters a debt of gratitude for coming out. It was disappointing that we came up short, but it was an awesome atmosphere and one I will remember long after I take my leave of DMT after this year.

Contrastingly, Sunday was a great showing for us. We somehow pulled out the doubles point against Notre Dame (ND), and went on to roll them 7-0. We went on to unsurprisingly roll through NCCU, but more importantly, we did so quickly enough that I was able to catch the second half of the Super Bowl.

We now have a two week break before we play VCU on February 21^st (at VCU). This downtime is a product of our loss against Alabama in the 2^nd round of the ITA Kickoff Weekend (in really awesome, sub fifty degree weather). If we had won that match we would be traveling to play in the ITA National Indoors at UVA this coming weekend. It sucks, to be completely honest, but it’s not an end all and it’s only a minor setback with respect to the entire season. It’s a long season, and our biggest goals are lay at the end of the year.

The upside to this loss? We have time to get back to some hard training. In the spirit of this, we started today with a 6:30am conditioning workout. Stumbling out of the apartment with Aaron (aka “Carp”…we live together) at 6:05am into amidst near darkness is a hell of a way to start a Wednesday. But the feeling after finishing a tough early morning workout is really awesome, a high that that lasts for a couple hours (until your body starts yelling at you for not getting to sleep earlier enough in preparation for such an early rising).

This afternoon I think we are hoping to play some ultimate frisbee, but we’ll have to see whether this happens in light of the wind and cold (or maybe we’ll try it indoors). Personally I would lobby for touch football, but the chance for injury may be a little too high, and I don’t think the non-American members of the team are overly excited at this prospect (though they would do anything for us to play soccer instead).

Now that the ball is rolling on DMT postings, I’ll try and make sure that future postings give insight into more of the inner workings of DMT and not just what is posted on GoDuke.

Famous DMT quote: “It was already dead”.

- Explanation: Luke Marchese’s response to objections to his decision to euthanize an injured bee during a pre-practice huddle.

Best of luck to Duke Women’s Tennis (DWT) this coming weekend as they go to compete at the ITA National Indoor Championships!

Until next time…

- Dylan Arnould