The No. 8 Duke men's tennis team (1-0) started off its season in convincing fashion yesterday, defeating No. 41 William & Mary (2-2) by a 5-2 margin in the Sheffield Tennis Center.
The Blue Devils began the competition by sweeping the doubles matches, and then went on to win 4 of the 6 singles contests to ensure victory.
Duke All-American Phillip King, who sat out the fall season with an injured wrist, was impressive in his debut matches. He and Jonathan Stokke combined to win 8-3 in doubles play. King then went on to dispatch the Tribe's best singles player, No. 26 Jeff Kader, 6-1, 6-0.
After the match, King expressed little doubt in his ability to defeat Kader.
"I think I matched up really well against him," King said. "I got off to a good start, just kept it up, and played every point as if I were down. I just played my game--if it wasn't broke, I wasn't going to fix it."
Head coach Jay Lapidus was excited to see his best player and team leader back on the court.
"I thought Philip played a really good match today, that was one of the best matches I've seen him play in a while," Lapidus said. "The level he played at today was really, really, really good."
Equally impressive was the performance of Ludovic Walter. Walter and partner Jason Zimmerman--the nation's No. 2 doubles team and reigning ITA Doubles Champions--defeated No. 28 Steven Kane and Geoff Russell in an close 8-6 contest. With the score tied 6-6, the Duke team broke serve and subsequently served out the match.
"That game was the key to the match, because we served well, and we volleyed well," Walter said. "All the games on their serve were close until we finally broke them."
Walter went on to defeat Sean Kelleher in singles play 6-2, 6-1. The sophomore's powerful serve and aggressive net game proved too much for Kane to handle, and after the match Walter admitted that Kelleher had unwittingly played right into his strength.
"The guy I played was not too dangerous, he didn't have much power, and he made me play well by putting spin on strokes that made the ball bounce high, right where I like to hit them," Walter said. "It was a pretty good match for me."
Finally, Peter Rodrigues impressed many in his first career home match. He and sophomore Stephen Amritraj were broken in the first game of their doubles contest, but rebounded to break twice en route to a 8-6 victory.
"I think in our game we returned really well, and as a result we got two big breaks," Rodrigues said. "They started by breaking us, so I think we did a good job hanging in there, fighting, and not becoming pessimistic. We stayed positive and everything turned out okay."
Rodrigues then went on to defeat the Tribe's Alex Fish 6-1 6-1, a win that greatly impressed Lapidus.
"I was really proud of the way Peter Rodrigues played in his first match as a freshman," Lapidus said. "He was probably a little bit nervous, but he beat the guy 6-1, 6-1 and played extremely well."
Stokke contributed the Blue Devils' final victory, defeating Geoff Russell 7-5, 7-6. On the losing end for Duke were Zimmermann, who lost 6-2, 6-3 to Steven Kane, and Amritraj, who was defeated by Stephen Ward 4-6, 6-2. 10-7.
The Blue Devils continue their schedule at home on Saturday when they will face off against No. 9 Texas A&M in a contest that will be highlighted by a matchup of the nation's top two doubles teams--Walter and Zimmermann and the Aggies' Lester Cook and Ante Matijevic.
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