Last weekend, Duke took its first road trip of the season and was soundly beaten by both Notre Dame and Illinois, two of the top 15 teams in the country.
How nice it is to be back home.
The No. 12 Blue Devils (3-2) took out their frustrations against Penn (1-3) Friday, recording a 7-0 sweep at the Sheffield Indoor Tennis Center.
"It was good for our confidence," head coach Jay Lapidus said. "Our goal for the match was to see if we could win all the singles, and we did, so we're happy about that."
After Duke failed to record a doubles point in its two road matches, Lapidus decided to change all three doubles teams for the match against the No. 64 Quakers. The move proved to be successful, as the Blue Devils took all three doubles matches to earn the first point.
"We decided to sort of spread the wealth a little bit, mix up the teams and see if we could get a little spark," Lapidus said.
The singles matches that followed were fairly competitive, particularly the match between Duke's top seed, Joey Atas, and Penn's Jason Pinsky. Before Atas could close out his 7-6, 6-3 win, Blue Devils David Goulet, Dylan Arnould and Peter Rodrigues all won in straight sets to clinch the victory.
Duke will next travel to Chicago, Ill. for the USTA/ITA Men's Team Indoor Championships, in which the Blue Devils will face another highly ranked opponent, No. 8 Baylor. The tournament will be played February 16-19.
"Baylor is awfully good," Lapidus said. "They were preseason No. 2 before they lost to Florida, so we have our work cut out for us."
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