All said, the No. 4 women's tennis team had a nice weekend, routing two conference opponents, reaching several milestones and even finding enough time to celebrate Senior Day all while being able to be seated comfortably by Sunday night.
And with its 6-1 win over visiting Virginia (11-8, 1-4) Sunday afternoon, Duke ran its record to 5-0 in the ACC and 20-2 overall--the ninth straight 20 win season for the Blue Devils.
Although the season's close is six weeks away, it was the last home match on the schedule for the team and its four seniors this year. The quartet--Hillary Adams, Julie Deroo, Katie Granson and Prim Siripipat--leave Ambler Stadium and Sheffield Indoor Tennis Center with an indelible mark on the program and its all-time records. They have helped the Blue Devils to a four-year record of 95-15, three NCAA tournament berths, two ACC regular season titles and two ACC tournament championships. All that is missing is a national championship, which might be on the way.
"The four of them have done a great job," head coach Jamie Ashworth said. "They never lost at home outside. Hopefully we can ride them for a while longer and they can end their career on a good note."
With shots gone awry followed by grunts of exasperation and rants of frustration-and successful plays receiving grunts and rants of the opposite kind, the Duke players won the doubles point by capturing the first and third doubles flights. Then junior Amanda Johnson put the Blue Devils up 2-0 with a 6-1, 6-1 defeat of Jennifer Tuchband, and teammates Adams and sophomore Kelly McCain followed suit with easy wins, the latter one clinching the match.
In the last flight, Kristen James was able to steal the Cavaliers' only singles triumph of the day when she took down Deroo 7-6, 3-6, 1-0.
The match lasted 30 minutes longer than the next-to-last one and the stadium's entire focus was on the two players and their rally-filled, back-and-forth game.
"I am sure that we, especially Julie, would have loved to win all of the matches," McCain said. "But you can't win them all. It's just one match, though, in the big picture."
Ashworth said he was pleased with his team's effort, but was not happy with its consistency.
"Our doubles was good and our singles were also pretty good," Ashworth said. "But we need to do a better job in the middle [flights], especially with where we are in the season."
Saturday, the Duke team was flawless, not dropping a single flight or a single set en route to a 7-0 blowout of Maryland (8-9, 0-5.)
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