This is the first installment of a two-part series exploring the playing facilities for the Duke men's and women's varsity tennis teams. Wednesday's story will look at the possibility for the construction of a new indoor tennis facility.
The Duke men's and women's tennis teams traditionally battle some of the nation's top squads, but their toughest opponent might not come in competitive play. After all, one of the biggest obstacles which the Blue Devils annually face is the tan building near the West Campus tennis courts which the Duke tennis teams are forced to call home.
Due to the unusually cold winter which Durham experienced in 1996, Duke's tennis teams had to move all of their practices in January and February indoors. Chilly and rainy weather also forced the Blue Devils inside for much of March.
Because there is no indoor tennis facility on Duke's campus, the Blue Devil tennis squads were left scrambling for whatever indoor court time they could find. The Duke teams frequently found themselves booking four courts at the Chapel Hill Tennis Club for practice. The Blue Devils also held many of their winter practices on the basketball courts of the Intramural Building, a multipurpose athletic facility which is located adjacent to the tennis courts on West Campus. The IM Building was not designed to house tennis courts, and the members of the Duke tennis teams almost unanimously agree that the facility is inadequate for holding productive practices.
"The walls are so confined and the ceiling is so low that you can't run wide of the court and you can't lob," said senior Rob Chess, who is a member of the men's team. "It's so dirty that it's hard to get any traction because you're sliding all over the place. And the lighting is bad. It's pretty awful. If you run wide and try to put up a lob, you hit the back of a backboard."
Not only are the makeshift courts at the IM Building not conducive to good tennis, but, according to women's head coach Jody Hyden, they are not a safe place to play the sport.
"The floor has waves in it and cracks in it, so it is a bit dangerous for the players," Hyden said. "We have to avoid standing and running in certain spots to avoid the crinkles in the floor. The walls are a problem because if the ball goes wide, we have to caution the girls about running into the walls and swinging and hitting into the wall as they go back. And the ceiling is so low that you can't practice lobs or overheads in there. You can't play in the IM Building as far as practice matches or anything. Really all you can do is basically just hit and work on specific things.
"I always tell our girls, though, that it's the number one indoor facility in the country because if you can play in the IM Building, you can play anywhere in the country."
As successful as the Blue Devils' men's and women's tennis programs have been over the past few seasons-the women are currently ranked No. 3 in the nation, and the men are tied for 10th in the country-it would seem reasonable for Duke to have top-notch tennis facilities on its campus. But while Hyden lauds Duke's outdoor tennis stadium as one of the best facilities on any campus in the nation, the lack of an indoor facility has hampered the Blue Devils in practice and in their efforts to recruit top high school players.
The layout of the cramped, dingy IM Building renders the facility virtually useless for playing tennis matches. But an equally daunting problem for the tennis teams has been their difficulty in finding enough court time. The IM Building is only large enough to fit two tennis courts, making it nearly impossible for an eight- to 10-person tennis team to practice there. Nevertheless, the men's team has had to hold nearly 30 practices in the IM Building this year.
Also, the tennis teams have to share the building with the rest of the student population since it is one of the few places where students can play basketball indoors. This means that indoor practices must be kept to an hour and a half, further limiting the amount which players can accomplish in their workouts. Consequently, the coaches often wind up instructing players off the court, rather than during practice.
"In the IM, with two courts and 10 players, it's almost impossible to get something productive done," men's head coach Jay Lapidus said. "It's a challenge to try to get a productive practice with 10 guys on two courts in an hour and a half. I get very testy in January and February, and it's just really frustrating. A lot of our manpower [outside of practice] makes up for the lack of facilities. But a lot of that time could be spent during practice if we had four indoor courts."
Even when the teams have been able to secure time on the courts at the Chapel Hill Tennis Club, they have had to scale back their practices significantly. For example, the women's team usually can reserve the courts from 2:30 p.m. until 4 p.m. By the time the players have stretched and warmed up, they usually have less than an hour to hit tennis balls. The team normally practices for two and a half hours when the weather is warm enough to allow the luxury of playing outdoors.
On the few occasions when the Blue Devils have been able to practice outdoors this spring, the cold, windy conditions have still made for less than optimal conditions. This has added to the players' and coaches' frustration.
"This winter has just been awful," Chess said. "When the weather is warmer, these courts are really nice, and I enjoy playing here. But we have no other choice but to practice out here in 40 degrees. People say that you're a tennis player, and you're complaining and you're babies because they think that tennis is not a tough guy sport, but this sport was not made to be played in 40 degrees when you can't feel the racket and the balls are like rocks. It's just not made to be played that way.
"When you think that we're playing in this, and we're just trying to get through the practice without wanting to put a knife in our backs because we're so frustrated, and guys out there in California that we're competing against are out there with their shirts off and sun block on their nose just loving it. And I'm just out here trying to get through practice."
The combination of lack of practice time and inadequate playing conditions have led the Blue Devils to be less sharp than they could be, especially early in the season, Lapidus said.
"I think we've always played better in April because we start getting more practice time," Lapidus said. "We always start out slow. We always don't do well at the National Team Indoors relative to how we do later in the year. It would nice to be able to start out in February playing matches at a higher level."
The National Team Indoors are one of the few times during the season when most of the nation's top teams converge in a single tournament. Consequently, the teams which perform well at that tournament rise to the top of the national rankings. Had the Blue Devils done better at the National Team Indoors last season, for instance, they might have had a slightly higher national ranking at the end of the season and might not have had to face eventual national champion Stanford in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Having indoor facilities on campus might enable the Blue Devils to win more matches in this early-season tournament in future years.
"In the men's game, especially where everyone's so competitive and so close, just a little bit of an edge, a five percent edge, makes a big difference," Lapidus said. "It may not be as much physically as mentally, just the guys knowing that they've put in their two and a half hours of practice that helps them mentally and maybe gives them a five percent edge. Whereas if you know you've only practiced an hour and a half, you go out there and you're not sure that you're really prepared to win."
Hyden points out that Duke's lack of indoor practice facilities can actually benefit the teams, though. This year's Blue Devils have not suffered any injuries from overusing their arms since they have spent less time hitting balls in practice. But the women's head coach feels that there is one area in which Duke's facilities have unequivocally hampered the Blue Devils' tennis programs.
"It definitely hurts our recruiting, especially when we're recruiting against schools that have indoor tennis centers," Hyden said. "They always use that against us, and they always say that there you can play all through the winter. All the top programs compete for the top players, and they always say, 'At Duke, you can't play very much in the winter when it's bad.'"
William & Mary completed a $6 million, six court indoor tennis facility last April, and according to Brian Kalbas, the Tribe's women's tennis coach, the new facility has been one of his best recruiting tools. Kalbas also attributes much of his program's sudden rise to No. 22 in the national rankings to the excitement and improved recruiting generated by the new facility.
With schools like William & Mary adding new, top of the line indoor tennis facilities, and since every other Atlantic Coast Conference school has at least a tennis bubble on campus, it is becoming increasingly difficult for Duke to compete for recruits.
"I know that people who come on recruiting trips are shocked," Chess said. "When you're recruiting, you'll go to schools in succession, and in terms of comparing facilities, they don't compare."
"They're going to lose players to Florida and California schools because they lack the facilities," Kalbas said.
Despite Duke's lack of an indoor facility, the Blue Devils' programs have consistently been among the nation's best in recent years. They have dominated the ACC, even though every other school in the conference has indoor practice facilities better than the IM Building. In fact, the women's team recently secured its ninth consecutive regular season conference title. Recruiting top players has obviously been a major part of Duke's success, and some players such as Wendy Lyons, a two-time All-American who graduated last spring, chose Duke despite its facilities.
"The reason I chose the school was the combination of academics and tennis," Lyons said. "No other school could match that."
For the meantime, the Blue Devils will need to continue to use Duke's strong academics and its tradition as a tennis power to attract recruits, because its current indoor tennis facility is not a strong selling point.
"As much as the tennis team doesn't like it, the IM Building is our indoor tennis facility," said junior Jason Goode, the Duke Student Government's vice president for facilities and athletics, who also serves on the Recreational Facilities Task Force.
So until an indoor facility is built, the Blue Devils are trying to make the best of their current situation. While playing in the IM Building and in poor weather outside may hurt Duke's recruiting and take away valuable practice time, both Lapidus and Hyden feel that their teams use this adversity to build character and develop mental toughness.
"It's been challenging for us, but in a sense I compare it to Rocky's gyms," Lapidus said. "It's kind of like going to the meat locker in Philadelphia and trying to train. We're not spoiled, that's for sure."
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