Men's tennis

[devildeac]

Splat. A 2nd round loss to the evil ones, 2-4. It is apparently the 1st time we have played them in the NCAA tourney. Not many Director's Cup points there:( .

[Clipsfan]

How did our team do during the ACC season?

[Bluedog]

How did our team do during the ACC season?

Somewhat disappointing season by Duke's standards. Lost of lot of key players the last two years. Against conference foes (including ACC, NCAA tourny), Duke was 7-7. Behind UVA (#1 in country, 30-0 overall), UNC, FSU, Miami, WFU, Va Tech. And ahead of NC St, Ga Tech, MD, BC, Clemson. Started out the year ranked 16 in the country, ended up 43. Best win was vs. #20 Miami. Worst loss was vs. #32 Va Tech. The team is very young: 4 freshman, 3 soph, 1 jr, 3 sr. Should improve next year.

Reid Carleton, a freshman, was ranked in the top 10 in the nation while in high school for his age division (ranked #78 in the nation in collegiate competition, was as high as 39 earlier in the season).

[ugadevil]

Splat. A 2nd round loss to the evil ones, 2-4. It is apparently the 1st time we have played them in the NCAA tourney. Not many Director's Cup points there:( .

The NCAA Championship was last night. I'll give you all a guess at who got the most cup points. Around here in Athens, we like to REPEAT ourselves!

[ugadevil]

Against conference foes (including ACC, NCAA tourny), Duke was 7-7. Behind UVA (#1 in country, 30-0 overall), UNC, FSU, Miami, WFU, Va Tech.

For those who might be interested, UVA was considered the heavy favorite going into the NCAA Tournament. They were undefeated and had the nation's top player, who was last season's individual champion. UGA defeated them in the semifinal round in a pretty big upset. UVA was in good shape and had a good chance to win the match, but their last singles player had difficulty with cramps and lost his match in the third set, giving Georgia the victory. Also, Texas, the team UGA defeated in the championship, upset Ohio State in the semifinals to get to the championship match. Sounds like it was a great few days in Tulsa, OK for college tennis.

[Bluedog]

Duke senior David Goulet lost today to #6 overall seed Robert Farah from USC 6-2, 7-6 (4) in the singles tournament. So, no Duke men's tennis is left. Goulet demolished Benjamin Carlotti from UNC 6-2, 6-2 earlier in the match play format, but didn't get much support from the rest of his team.

On the Duke women's side, Ellah Nze and Reka Zsilinszka are in the singles draw. In the doubles draw, Amanda Granson and Melissa Mang are a 5-8 seed and show a lot of promise.

[ugadevil]

The ACC still has a good shot at bringing home the Men's Singles Title with Somdev Devvarman from UVa. Devarrman has already advanced to the second round and is the defending national champion. He's the top seed in the tournament and if he makes it to the championship, this would be his 3rd consecutive year in the finals. This guy is one of the best to ever play college tennis.

[IStillHateJimBain]

Depends on how many players you put in the "best ever" group.
Don't forget that John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Arthur Ashe and Stan Smith played college tennis, although Mac and Jimbo played just one year. I'm not sure about Ashe and Smith.
McEnroe beat N.C. State's John Sadri in the 1977 final when Mac was a freshman, played at Wimbledon as a wild-card entry and got all the way to the semifinals where he lost to Connors. The rest is history.
Sadri was a real character. He wore a huge cowboy hat onto the court for warmups and played a good match against McEnroe. Then he came out on the tour with a gigantic serve that he somehow developed and got to the Wimbledon quarterfinals one year.
For longevity and talent, Devvarman has been exemplary. He'll get his degree and try the tour. He's played a few events without a lot of success. It just shows how tough the pro tennis tour is and how good those guys are.

[ugadevil]

Depends on how many players you put in the "best ever" group.
Don't forget that John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Arthur Ashe and Stan Smith played college tennis, although Mac and Jimbo played just one year. I'm not sure about Ashe and Smith.
McEnroe beat N.C. State's John Sadri in the 1977 final when Mac was a freshman, played at Wimbledon as a wild-card entry and got all the way to the semifinals where he lost to Connors. The rest is history.
For longevity and talent, Devvarman has been exemplary. He'll get his degree and try the tour. He's played a few events without a lot of success. It just shows how tough the pro tennis tour is and how good those guys are.

Well putting McEnroe and Connors in the best college players group would be like having Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Durant in the best college basketball players ever. It's hard to develop college careers when you only stick around for a year. You're right about the pro tennis tour. College tennis reminds me a great deal of college baseball. While the best players in college are great, many of the best young players don't even go to college and head straight to the minor league system. It's part of what made it so impressive that John Isner was able to hang with Roger Federer in the U.S. Open last season.

[Bluedog]

Well putting McEnroe and Connors in the best college players group would be like having Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Durant in the best college basketball players ever. It's hard to develop college careers when you only stick around for a year. You're right about the pro tennis tour. College tennis reminds me a great deal of college baseball. While the best players in college are great, many of the best young players don't even go to college and head straight to the minor league system. It's part of what made it so impressive that John Isner was able to hang with Roger Federer in the U.S. Open last season.

Yes, I've been very impressed with Isner in the pros. The VAST majority of college tennis players don't make it in the pros. There are only a handful of current top pros that played American college tennis - Blake comes to mind as the best example. College tennis is clearly not anywhere like college basketball. I'd guess that's because basketball is still American dominated (not like it used to be, but definitely more than 50% of pros are American), while tennis is much more of a world sport where Americans make up a small portion of the world circuit. In most European nations (especially Eastern Europe), tennis is the second most popular sport (behind soccer, of course). Phillip King, former Duke #1 player for 4 years, was ranked the #1 tennis player in America in 18s two years in a row and won Kalamazoo twice (the biggest junior tournament of the year; the winner gets a wildcard into the U.S. Open; he was the second player since WWII to win it twice). He showed great promise and even said that he would beat Andy Roddick growing up (as he was ranked higher than Roddick). He said for some reason playing college tennis hurt him, and he has never met the lofty expectations. Can you imagine the #1 high school basketball player never making it to the NBA? Seems extremely unlucky, but happens all the time in tennis. Right now, King is trying his luck at Futures, Challengers, and Qualifying events, but I don't think he's played in a top level ATP tournament since July 2007 (he made Los Angeles). Although he is doing extremely well in Futures, which is impressive to me, but hasn't been able to break out in challenger and qualifier events. On a random note, I played high school and USTA tennis with the guy who lost to Devvarman in the first round. GREAT player (runner-up in the state) and a nice guy. Unfortunately, his career at Vandy is now over. His economics degree at Vandy should be helpful, though...