The women's tennis team, looking to build on its strong performance at last weekend's All-American Tournament, began play yesterday at the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Southeast Women's Regional Championships. The regional tournament is being held at North Carolina's Cone-Kenfield Tennis Center.
Senior Lauren Archer and junior Parker Goyer both won their first matches in the qualifying portion of the tournament but lost their second matches Thursday, failing to advance to the main draw.
Several Blue Devils, however, earned bids to the singles main draw, which will begin today at 8 a.m. Duke has four players seeded in the tournament's top nine, including fourth-seeded Jackie Carleton and fifth-seeded Clelia Deltour.
"The number of high seeds that we have just shows the depth of our team," head coach Jamie Ashworth said. "It shows that, in our region, we can have a good showing and hopefully gain a mental edge going into the spring season. This tournament is a good opportunity to show our depth. I really think that all seven of our singles players could make the quarterfinals."
Freshman Jessi Robinson and junior Jennifer Zika each earned ninth seeds, while freshmen Melissa Mang and Tara Iyer, and junior Kristin Cargill will all also compete for the Blue Devils in the singles portion of the tournament.
Several Blue Devil pairs also earned high seeds in the doubles draw.
Junior UCLA transfer Daniela Bercek and Robinson are the top seed in the doubles bracket. They play their first match of the tournament today at 5 p.m. against the team of Stahl Johnson and Agustina Arechavaleta from N.C. State.
"With their results from last week, they showed that they can be one of the top teams in the country," Ashworth said of his top-seeded duo. "Their top competition, however, will be from our own team. I really feel like any one of our doubles teams could win this tournament."
The team of Cargill and Carleton earned the sixth seed in the tournament and will play East Tennessee State's Olya Batsula and Tara Byrne.
"They were in the top 35 last year and only played in a few matches," Ashworth said of the Cargill and Carleton pairing. "They could have easily been in the top 15 or 20 if they had played more together."
Also playing today will be the teams of Mang and Zika, Deltour and Iyer and Archer and Goyer.
Archer and Goyer rebounded from their singles losses Thursday to win their first-round doubles match, 8-0, against the team of Ashley Heard and Nazli Kutuk from Charleston Southern. The pair now has a tough draw having to face Kentucky's second-seeded pair, Kim Coventry and Joelle Schwenk. Deltour and Iyer also won their first-round match Thursday, 8-3.
In yesterday's singles qualifying action, Archer lost her first set of the day but battled back and won her first-round match against Kentucky's Caroline Winebrenner, 4-6, 6-2, 6-2. Slowed by a back injury in the round of 16, Archer played another three-set match but fell to North Carolina's Laura Reichert, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3.
In her first-round match, Goyer defeated Charlotte's Kathy Robey, 6-4, 6-4, and also advanced to the round of 16. In her second match, Goyer met North Carolina's Alex Jurewicz, whom she beat at the UNC Invitational last November, 6-3, 6-4. This time, however, Goyer fell to Jurewicz, 6-4, 6-4.
The singles finalists and doubles champions automatically advance to the ITA National Collegiate Indoor Championships Nov. 3-6 at Ohio State University.
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