Duke smashed into its fall season this weekend, as seven Blue Devils competed in the 38th annual Southern Intercollegiate Championships.
Sophomore Kiril Dimitrov beat three ranked players before losing Sunday, and the top-seeded doubles team of junior David Goulet and senior Joey Atas remain alive in the doubles bracket.
The four-day tournament, held at Georgia's Dan Magill Tennis Complex, consists of three singles divisions and two doubles divisions. Duke went into the weekend hoping to learn more about the team that was without Ludovic Walter, Jonathon Stokke and Stephen Armitraj, who all graduated last spring.
Assistant coach Ramsey Smith said he was pleased with the young team's performance in the tournament.
"Overall I like the way things are going," Smith said. "It's still early on in the season, but it's been a pretty good tournament."
Goulet and Atas will close the championship for Duke when the tournament's No. 1-seeded doubles team plays in the Division I semifinals today.
"We've been playing well," Atas said. "We're kind of looking forward to the match. We're not really nervous or anything."
Ramsey said the breakout performances of the tournament went to Dimitrov and freshman Aaron Carpenter.
Dimitrov--one of the three returning significant contributors from a year ago--defeated Georgia's Travis Helgeson, the fifth-ranked player in the nation, in the second round. Dimitrov was stopped by Georgia's Luis Flores, 6-4, 6-2, Sunday in the fourth round of the Divison I singles.
"It's the best weekend since I've been at Duke," Dimitrov said. "The second round went 6-3, 6-0. [Helgeson] was just unable to do anything against me."
Ramsey said Dimitrov's performance should boost his ranking and singles position in Duke's lineup for dual matches this season. Last year, Dimitrov saw action in the fourth, fifth and sixth singles spots.
"That should really help his ranking and establish him as one of the top-50 players in the country," Ramsey said. "He's going to have a chance to play at third or fourth in the lineup."
Newcomer Carpenter made a splash in his first collegiate action. He dominated in three matches-closing out Virginia Tech's Brandon Carace, 6-1, 6-0, in the second round-and fell in the fourth round of the Division II singles.
"I was playing good tennis and hitting the balls aggressively," Carpenter said. "I played one of my best matches where I literally could do no wrong. It felt great."
Senior Peter Rodrigues lost in the second round of the Division I singles bracket to Flores.
Junior Alex Stone and freshman David Lue also saw action in the Division II singles bracket, but both were defeated in first round.
Although the team is relatively young, Ramsey said the outlook for the rest of the season looks positive.
"There's a lot of encouraging results," he said.
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