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Welcome Home Spencer Furman Brings Duke Men's Tennis to Hometown of Seattle

This week, Spencer Furman and the Duke men's tennis team will travel to Seattle for the ITA National Men's Team Indoor Championship. Furman grew up in Seattle and went to Sammamish High School. The ability to take his teammates to his hometown is a dream come true. Read on to see what the sophomore has to say about this trip, the 2018 dual match season and more.

The trip home means a lot for me. I have been thinking about the ITA Nationals and hoping to play in it since I learned the University of Washington was hosting.
I remember in high school going to watch University of Washington tennis matches and hoping one day I could go back and play on those courts, in front of a home crowd. Since I did not attend Washington, I hoped my team would have that unique opportunity.
Going to school at Duke, so far away from Seattle, I knew making National Indoors was perhaps our only opportunity to play at University of Washington and in Seattle. To be able to make the tournament meant a lot to me. It felt like I was fulfilling a longtime dream of mine. I’m excited to go home, see the area I grew up in and life-long friends.
To advance to the team indoor championship, the Blue Devils had to win twice in Fort Worth, Texas, very close to where Furman's parents currently live.

It was great to have the team together in my home. I think it made our team even closer because it let us bond off the tennis courts. We spend so much time together on the court so it was great to have the team and coaches together off the court. We had dinner at my house the first night. It set the tone for the entire weekend. The positive energy started when we landed in Fort Worth. We took that energy along with us the whole time.

Sean Sculley (top), Ryan Dickerson (middle) and Spencer Furman won singles matches in the ITA Kick-Off Weekend championship against San Diego to secure Duke's trip to Seattle. Furman provided the clinching point.
2018 Duke men's tennis team

Since it was one of our team goals to qualify for the ITA National Men's Team Indoor Championship, it was very special to feel all our hard work already paying off with results so quickly in the year. It really showed us what we are capable of this year. There were three other great teams at the ITA Kick-Off Weekend. To come out as the winner really showed everyone on our team we can compete with anyone and that we deserve to be one of the final 16 teams in Seattle. Also, to win without Nico [Alvarez] playing showed our character and that Duke Men’s Tennis responds to adversity and challenges -- that we just keep fighting, even when it is easy to make excuses for ourselves.

2018 Duke men's tennis team
It felt great to achieve that goal of making it to Seattle because it felt like we built some momentum and can ride this wave into other great wins. It was even a little hard to adjust the excitement of reaching one of our goals already so early in the year because there is so much tennis to play.

Later in the year I think we will look back and be confident in our ability because we have an impressive outing already under our belt. We know that we have to work until we achieve our next goal, but it feels good to have this goal accomplished.

We want to feel this emotion of accomplishing a goal of ours again, so we are going to keep working until we get that next goal checked off.

Credits:

Created with images by Timothy Eberly - "Good Morning Seattle" • Alex Mertz - "Space Needle at Sunset"

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