After dropping its first match against Northwestern since 1982 last season, Duke was looking for payback Sunday afternoon at the Sheffield Indoor Tennis Center.
With her team leading 3-1, No. 34 Jackie Carleton knocked off 15th-ranked Alexis Prousis to secure a victory in the Blue Devils' home-opener.
The two teams split the remaining matchups to bring the final margin to 5-2 in favor of No. 8 Duke (5-2), as the No. 6 Wildcats (7-3) dropped their second match of the weekend.
After the squads split the two opening doubles contests, the doubles point came down to Carleton and Kristin Cargill who held a 7-2 lead over the Wildcats.
Carleton and Cargill dropped consecutive games, but recovered to win their match, 8-4, and secure the seventh-straight doubles point for the Blue Devils.
"Our doubles point has been strong all year and the matches that [the Wildcats] have lost are ones where they've lost some doubles points, so we knew that the doubles point was going to be big," head coach Jamie Ashworth said. "I thought we actually came out a little flat in doubles with some shaky starts, but we did a good job coming back in the middle."
Jennifer Zika and Melissa Mang picked up the first victory in a doubles match for Duke to start the day. The 45th-ranked duo remains undefeated in doubles action this season.
Duke's other doubles pair, No. 6 Daniela Bercek and Jessi Robinson, fell Sunday for its first loss this season to Northwestern's No. 5 duo of Cristelle Grier and Prousis, 8-6.
"Though we haven't lost a doubles point this year, we lost two matches in a row where we've lost four singles," Ashworth said. "So we've come out and had that doubles point negated right away, but today we were able to build on the doubles point which was definitely better."
Mang dominated Northwestern's Feriel Esseghir, 6-0, 6-1, to get the Blue Devils going early in singles play.
"Today we won a singles match quickly with Melissa," Ashworth said. "Melissa played really well and so it was that that threw everybody a little bit confidence-wise."
That confidence kept Duke going with another straight-set win by freshman Tara Iyer on court four. Ranked 57th nationally, Iyer's singles point gave the Blue Devils a 3-0 advantage, one point short of clinching a win over Northwestern. Zika was unable to pull through with the point, however, and lost her matchup against 36th-ranked Wildcat Georgia Rose before Carleton sealed the match for the Blue Devils.
With the outcome decided, Cargill lost in a tiebreaker and No. 2 Bercek defeated No. 10 Grier in straight sets in the top singles pairing.
Having transferred this year from UCLA, Bercek has confidence in her Duke team.
"It's my first time playing at home at Duke, so it's different but I had a good time and believe everybody else did as well," Bercek said. "We're not looking at the rankings, we know where we are, we know we're good enough and so we just need to prove that."
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