Despite losing National Freshman of the Year and All-American Ansley Cargill to the professional circuit and co-captains Megan Miller and Kathy Sell to graduation, the Duke women's tennis team proved last weekend that this year's squad may be even stronger than last year's national championship contender.
Seven Blue Devils competed in the Rivera All-American Championships, which is the first of three grand slam collegiate events during the 2001-2002 season, and many of the Duke players posted impressive victories.
In a performance reminiscent of Cargill's heroics last year, Duke freshman Kelly McCain defeated several top-10 players en route to the semifinals of the main singles draw. In the 2000 Rivera Championships, Cargill, an unseeded freshman ranked No. 59 in the nation, swept through the competition to capture the prestigious title.
Similarly, McCain entered this year's event unseeded and ranked No. 49 nationally. After an easy first round victory, she ran into Stanford's Lauren Kalvaria, the No. 2 seed and last year's finalist at the NCAA Championships. McCain took advantage of sloppy play by Kalvaria at the start of the match and prevailed 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-2.
"In the first set she was making some mistakes, so I gained a lot of confidence," McCain said. "The second set could have gone either way, but I was able to recover in the third."
After the biggest win of her young collegiate career, McCain went out the same day and smoked No. 8 Mariel Verban of Georgia 6-2, 6-2, to advance to the semifinals; her streak ended there with a 6-4, 6-3 loss to No. 4 Nataly Cahana, a feisty Old Dominion sophomore.
While McCain made her mark on the collegiate circuit, she also impressed coach Jamie Ashworth, who had few previous opportunities to see her play against top competition.
"I knew that Kelly was definitely talented enough to produce these results," Ashworth said. "But I had never really seen her play many matches against tough opponents. This was only her second major college tournament, so it's good for her to see that she can play at that level."
McCain's play was not the only bright spot for the Blue Devils, though. Sophomore Amanda Johnson, who Ashworth calls Duke's most consistent performer over the last year-and-a-half, entered the tournament as the No. 8 seed and advanced to the quarterfinals where she fell to Fresno State's No. 18 Kim Niggenmeyer.
Johnson handled No. 34 Lia Jackson of Northwestern 6-1, 6-0 in the first round to set up a showdown against Stanford's 10th-ranked Gabriela Lastra in the Round of 16. Johnson prevailed 6-3, 3-6, 6-2, making Duke 2-0 in singles against the defending NCAA Champion Cardinal.
"This is the best that Amanda has done in a Grand Slam event," Ashworth said. "She's always such a consistent player in dual matches, but she struggled in all three Grand Slams last year."
Also posting impressive victories were freshman Saras Arasu and junior transfer Julie DeRoo. Arasu won five matches in the pre-qualifying and qualifying rounds before falling 7-5, 7-6 to Kentucky's Carolina Mayorga in the final qualifying match.
DeRoo lost in the first round of the main draw to No. 5 Sara Walker but recovered to win the consolation draw. Players often have difficulty maintaining intensity in back-draw matches, but DeRoo kept her focus and defeated four ranked players.
"I lost in the first round of the main draw and the first round of the consolation last year at this tournament," she said. "I didn't want to let that happen again."
In prequalifying singles matches, junior Hillary Adams won two matches and freshman Susie Abromeit won one before being eliminated.
While Duke enjoyed success in singles, it once again faltered in the doubles tournament, with no team advancing past the first round of the main draw.
"We have to work on our doubles," Ashworth said. "I think we just need to play together more. Doubles is largely about communication, and this was the first time that a lot of our teams had played together in a major tournament. Overall, though, I that that the whole week has set a good tone for our team and really shows how deep we are this year."
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.