Blue Devils win 2 in trip to Lone Star state

Duke finished off its non-conference schedule during spring break, recording two wins and a loss during a week-long trip to Texas.

The No. 19 Blue Devils (7-5) fell to Texas, the highest-ranked of the three teams they competed against, in a difficult opener to the road trip, but they left the Lone Star State in high spirits after morale boosting wins against Texas A&M and TCU.

"The fact that we finished the trip really strong made a difference," freshman Dylan Arnould said. "It makes it feel like we're building some momentum heading into ACC season."

Duke's match against the No. 13 Longhorns (12-5) March 10 gave the Blue Devils little cause for optimism. Nearly every match was close and most came down to the final set, but Texas was able to claim both the doubles point and the first three singles matches contested. Duke's Peter Rodrigues and Kiril Dimitrov made the score a respectable 5-2.

The Blue Devils' win over the 35th-ranked Aggies (10-5) was Duke's first win of the season away from the Sheffield Indoor Tennis Center. In a thrilling match, Duke again dropped the doubles point, putting the team in a hole right from the start. The two squads alternated wins in singles, though, and the score was tied at three apiece before Arnould, playing at the fifth position, pulled out a three set win to secure the 4-3 victory.

"This was an outstanding win for us over a great team on the road," said Duke head coach Jay Lapidus "I was really proud of all of our guys across the board. Our two seniors really stepped it up for us and for a freshman to come up huge like Dylan did, was great to see."

The final test on the road trip was TCU (3-8), who at No. 72 were the lowest ranked team the Blue Devils had faced the entire season. Despite the grueling match against the Aggies just two days earlier, Duke cruised to a 5-0 win.

"TCU was kind of better than their rank, but we won pretty handily, which is important for our confidence," Arnould said.