After welcoming regional opponents to Durham last weekend, the Blue Devils return to the courts for their final pair of matches before ACC play begins.
Duke will begin its second straight Saturday double-header with a 10 a.m. match against Coastal Carolina and close it out with a 3 p.m. match against Furman at Ambler Tennis Stadium. The Blue Devils will attempt to replicate the result from last weekend’s slate of matches—two 7-0 wins—against the Chanticleers and the Paladins. As always, Duke will be led by sophomore Nicolas Alvarez—who was just named ACC Player of the Week—in the No. 1 singles spot.
“I’m really happy for [Alvarez],” Duke head coach Ramsey Smith said. “He’s had some tough moments this spring, but he’s worked hard to turn things around and he’s played some of his best tennis. It’s really nice to see him get recognized for his good play and I think that should give him an extra boost of confidence heading into the rest of the season.”
Alvarez will likely face off against Coastal Carolina’s Jabor Al-Mutawa and Furman’s Adam Steryous in Saturday’s action. Freshman Catalin Mateas will hold down the No. 2 singles spot for the Blue Devils, and is expected to play Coastal Carolina’s Vuk Velickovic and Furman’s Matt Browne.
But the rest of Duke’s lineup is not as concrete as the first two seeds. Senior Josh Levine and junior T.J. Pura—who usually compete at the No. 5 and No. 3 singles spots—are nursing ailments and are questionable.
“T.J. and Josh have been dealing with some injuries, so they did not play last weekend," Smith said. "They are both progressing pretty well, but we’ll just have to see where they are come Saturday, and that could certainly be different than what it was this past weekend.”
In the event that neither Pura nor Levine play Saturday, freshman Ryan Dickerson and senior Daniel McCall will take their places at No. 3 and No. 5 singles, respectively. Both Blue Devils posted 2-0 ledgers last weekend, with Dickerson dropping just two games during the course of his two singles matches.
Duke (4-6) will take this final opportunity before ACC play begins to fortify its doubles game. The Blue Devils have won only four of 10 doubles points this season, two of which were last weekend against North Carolina A&T and Charlotte.
“It is an important point,” Smith said. “It really helps set the momentum of the match and we know how hard it is to have to continually fight back from losing doubles points, so our goal is to win as many doubles points as we can moving forward.”
Duke has spent a good part of the week’s practices working on doubles. The Blue Devils will likely start Alvarez and Dickerson on court one, Mateas and freshman Vincent Lin on court two and McCall and freshman Jason Lapidus on court three.
“We’re trying to build on last weekend,” Smith said. “We’re working on a lot of specific serving patterns for guys and return patterns. We’re just trying to fine-tune doubles. I thought doubles took a step forward really the last two weekends of doubles play and I feel like we’re on the right track, but we’re just going to continue to try to get better.”
With Duke’s first ACC match—a home contest against Georgia Tech—scheduled for March 6, the Blue Devils have a chance to enter league play with a four-game winning streak if they can take care of Coastal Carolina (6-1) and Furman (3-5). After starting at No. 13 in the national rankings, an early-season skid dropped Duke out of the top 25, and a pair of wins would help Smith's squad continue to make its case to re-enter the polls.
“It’s no secret that we’ve had some bumps along the road this semester, but we’re just looking ahead," Smith said. "This past weekend, we played better and we just want to continue to play better and give our guys opportunities to get matches under their belts going into Georgia Tech and the ACC season.”
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Jacob Weiss is a Trinity senior. His column, "not jumping to any conclusions," runs on alternate Fridays.