Duke's women's tennis team took home the title at the ITA National Team Indoors last weekend. The Blue Devil men would have had a chance to match them if not for a heavy dose of winter weather.
The six inches of snow and ice that Winter Storm Pax deposited in the Triangle Wednesday has forced the Blue Devils to withdraw from the ITA National Team Indoor Championships in Houston. Duke was set to open play Friday against No. 2 UCLA, but the cancelation of numerous flights from Raleigh-Durham International Airport has prevented the team from making the trip. Pepperdine will replace the Blue Devils in the tournament field. Duke will return to action March 2 against VCU.
After dropping two home matches in its opening weekend, including the first loss in program history to Elon, Duke put together a four-game winning streak before falling to the Volunteers but rebounded by taking down Michigan Sunday.
“We certainly had a really rough first weekend, but we have certainly learned from that and have done much better since,” head coach Ramsey Smith said. “Losses give you time to really reflect and figure out what you need to do better, so I think we have learned a lot from our losses and bounced back really strong, and we are playing some good tennis right now.”
In facing UCLA, Duke has a chance for revenge. The Blue Devils (5-3) were swept by the Bruins in the NCAA quarterfinals last spring. UCLA went on to lose to Virginia in the national championship match. UCLA (5-0) is currently undefeated on the season and has played two of the top 16 teams already this season. The Bruin lineup includes the nation's top-ranked player in Clay Thompson in addition to two other players ranked in the top 30. Duke’s top-ranked singles player is sophomore Michael Redlicki at No. 34.
“We are very excited to play UCLA. We have played them quite a few times over the years at the National Team Indoors,” Smith said. “They are a really good team, and are very deep, but our guys are not intimidated by UCLA. We are going to go in there feeling like we can win and it will be a great challenge.”
After a long weekend, Duke had a quick turnaround to work out kinks from its previous matches.
“It has been a very short week. We have been fine-tuning a couple of things and continuing to focus on being aggressive and playing on our terms.” Smith said. “We have been working a lot on serving and trying to get some free points on our serves.”
Duke had yet to play a match away from Durham before hitting the road last weekend, but logged considerable miles with their trips to Tennessee and Michigan. With a longer trip to Houston ahead, the Blue Devils hope they will enter tournament play better-suited to win on the road.
“It was our first road trip last weekend and we played some good tennis, especially finishing with that Michigan match,” Smith said. “We played extremely well, so that gives us some pretty good momentum going into this weekend.”
If the Blue Devils are victorious against UCLA, they will most likely face No. 7 Oklahoma in the second round. Duke defeated the Sooners 4-0 at last year’s National Team Indoor Championships. Duke's other possible opponent for the next round is No. 22 Illinois, which the Blue Devils beat 5-2 at Sheffield Indoor Tennis Center less than three weeks ago.
“All we know is we are going to get a bunch of really good matches and every opponent is going to be tough,” Smith said. “But, our full focus is on UCLA and after that match we will look forward to the next one.”
This story was last updated at 1:50 p.m.
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