It was a day of mixed results for the men's tennis team at the ITA Mideast Regional qualifier Thursday at the Sheffield Indoor Tennis Center.
The Blue Devils' top two doubles teams won two matches each, salvaging a day in which four of Duke's players dropped their first-round singles matches.
The duo of Jonathan Stokke and Joey Atas, the No. 2 seed in the doubles bracket, won two matches in convincing fashion over teams from William & Mary and East Tennessee State, 8-1, 8-3, respectively.
"Joey was serving pretty well, which makes it easy for me at the net," Stokke said. "I think we moved well and just played loose."
Meanwhile, the third-seeded tandem of Ludovic Walter and Peter Rodrigues needed a little more work to advance. The Blue Devils fell behind 4-1 early in their second round match against a team from N.C. State before roaring back for an 8-6 victory.
"We kind of came out going through the motions, Rodrigues, a junior, said. "We got better energy [later on]."
Walter added that sharpening their returns was the key to the turnaround.
In singles play, sophomore Alex Stone dropped a three-setter to Zachary Rath of Georgia Tech. Stone easily won the first set 6-1, but lost the second set in a tiebreaker and never recovered.
Stefan Rozycki, who qualified for the event with two wins Wednesday, dropped a three-set match, 5-7, 6-1, 6-1, after having trouble with cramps.
Ned Samuelson and Christopher Brown also lost their first-round matches.
"The other teams played well against us," head coach Jay Lapidus said. "We didn't really play poorly."
Walter, Atas, Stokke and Rodrigues will all pull double duty Friday, playing in both singles and doubles matches. Walter, the region's two-time defending champion and top seed, received a first-round bye and will begin his defense today at 8:30 a.m at the Sheffield Center. Atas, Stokke, and Rodrigues also received top-10 seeds and earned byes into the second round.
"I expect to see us do pretty well in the singles," assistant coach Ramsey Smith said. "All four are playing well right now. Any one of them can win the tournament."
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