The Blue Devils left for the Riviera/ITA All-American Championships in Pacific Palisades, Calif. in search of a learning experience. As the first competition of the year, the tournament would serve as the first opportunity for head coach Jamie Ashworth and his young Duke team to see how its new recruits would fit in and to test new doubles combinations.
For this reason, Duke had more players in the tournament than any other team, with a total of six athletes competing. Only one, freshman Beatrice Capra, earned an automatic bid to the main draw. Junior Mary Clayton and sophomore Rachel Kahan were placed in the qualifying bracket to win bids to the main draw, and the other three Blue Devils were seeded in the pre-qualifying tournament.
The first days brought limited success for the Blue Devils, who were not happy with their results. Junior Monica Gorny exited the pre-qualifying singles bracket after dropping her first-round match and freshman Ester Goldfeld followed soon afterwards with a loss to Vanderbilt’s Lauren Mira in the second round. Sophomore Hanna Mar was the only Duke athlete to make it through to the final round of the pre-qualifying singles bracket where she lost to Virginia’s Maho Kowase.
Despite the loss, she received an alternate bid into the qualifying round of the tournament and was able to extend her run. Mar joined Clayton and Kahan, the other Blue Devils who were able to bypass the pre-qualifying play, but none of them were able to make it past the first round.
“One of the things this tournament does is show us what we need to work on,” head coach Jamie Ashworth said, “and we have a lot to work on. Some of [the singles losses] were due to conditioning…. That’s something that usually has not been a problem for us. Right now…players and teams are just outlasting us. We need to focus on finishing points and finishing people off when we have the opportunity.”
After a rough beginning in its singles matches, though, the team’s doubles play started quickly. The Blue Devils paired Capra and Goldfeld for their most successful team in the tournament, as the two athletes played their way through a five-match win streak.
“[Our doubles combination] definitely worked well,” Goldfeld said. “We really complement each other well and we have really good communication so we definitely made a good team.”
The duo suffered a loss in the final round of the doubles qualifiers, which ended the tournament for Goldfeld. But despite the fact that the two did not make it into the main draw, both Goldfeld and Ashworth were happy with their efforts.
Although Goldfeld was out after their doubles defeat, Capra went on to play in the main draw for singles, which made her the only Blue Devil left in the tournament at that point. She won her first match of the draw in an upset victory over No. 7 Nicole Gibbs, a 2011 NCAA semifinalist from Stanford. Capra then went on to take a win from No. 16 Danielle Lao of Southern California, 6-1, 3-6, 6-1. With her win, Capra earned entry not only into the quarterfinals, but also into the 2011 ITA National Indoor Championships in Nov. Capra was finally stopped in the quarterfinals by No. 2 Allie Will from Florida, who defeated her in straight sets to close out her time in the tournament.
Capra’s success, along with the results from the doubles matches, was the highlight of the tournament for the Blue Devils. Any disappointment it experienced in the tournament’s early rounds, however, is forgotten as the team looks forward.
“I think that I have a good outlook for the season,” Mar said. “Not just for me, but for the whole team. It’s definitely early in the season…. We’re only going to get better by playing more matches.”
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.