The Blue Devils were outplayed against No. 4 Pepperdine Sunday in the semifinals of the National Men's Team Indoor Championships in Seattle, Wash. But a close win over No. 8 Baylor, the defending champions Friday, followed by a dominant performance against No. 1 Florida Saturday in the quarterfinals made this past weekend the best of Duke's season.
In both victories, the No. 9 Blue Devils, who head coach Jay Lapidus said should move up in the rankings after their weekend performance, captured the first point in doubles before entering singles competition.
"After we won the doubles point, I felt that we really came out in singles," Lapidus said. "And it really gave us a lot of momentum going into the singles. We had a great weekend, and I'm really proud of the guys."
In a close 3-3 contest against Baylor Friday, the Blue Devils looked for the decisive fourth point from freshman Kiril Dimitrov, who came from behind to defeat No. 94 Vladimir Portnov, 1-6, 6-4, 7-5.
"He showed a lot of poise for a freshman coming down to his match against the defending champions of the tournament," Lapidus said. "He showed some amazing amount of maturity and poise."
The Bulgarian, who played the fifth singles position against Baylor, moved up to the fourth spot in the Florida contest the next day and sealed Duke's 4-1 win, coming up with what Lapidus said was "some great stuff under pressure."
The doubles pairs of No. 9 Joey Atas and Jonathan Stokke, and Stephen Amritraj and Peter Rodrigues, who had been victorious in the Blue Devils' first two matches, were unable to convert Sunday against Pepperdine, losing their matches 8-5 and 8-4, respectively.
Sophomore Ned Samuelson faltered in a third-set tiebreaker, 7-4, and the loss gave the Waves its fourth and final point in the contest.
"Pepperdine and Illinois, to be honest, I think are the top two teams in the country," Lapidus said. "The teams are young and the rankings are deceiving. I think the new rankings will reflect some of these changes."
First singles player Ludovic Walter, a senior, won all three of his matches this weekend.
Atas suffered a rib injury playing doubles Saturday and relinquished his singles spot for the day. He returned to the court for doubles the following day against Pepperdine but reinjured his rib on a serve at 5-4 and up a break. He and his partner Stokke lost the next four games to drop the match.
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