The No. 3 Blue Devils (8-1) swept Princeton 7-0 at Sheffield Indoor Stadium Saturday, battling through a slow start in doubles to maintain focus in singles and push past a surprisingly tough Tigers team.
“For us to be really good, we want teams like Princeton to play really well against us,” Ashworth said. “We don’t want them to just roll over, and they didn’t.”
After being moved to the No. 3 doubles slot, sophomore Annie Mulholland and junior Marianne Jodoin got off to a slow start against the Tigers’ Amanda Muliawan and Katherine Flanigan, getting down 5-0 early on. Lengthy points and aggressive poaching at the net allowed the pair to battle back to within two games, but they ultimately could not close out the set, dropping the set 8-5.
“They play better when they play with a lot of emotion,” Ashworth said.
The doubles point came down to junior Hanna Mar and sophomore Monica Turewicz, who remained neck-and-neck with the Tigers for the entirety of the match. But an ace out wide and a six-ball rally won at the net allowed Duke to climb to a 7-5 lead against Princeton’s (4-2) Lindsay Graff—ranked No. 85 in the nation in singles—and Monica Chow. The pair eventually managed to break Graff’s serve at the game’s eighth deuce to win 8-6 and secure the doubles point of the Blue Devils.
On the singles side, senior captain No. 64 Mary Clayton, at the No. 4 singles spot, made quick work of Princeton’s Monica Chow 6-0, 6-3, putting the first singles win on the board for the Blue Devils.
It was tougher on courts one, two and five toward the beginning of the matches. “We dug ourselves too big of a hole,” Ashworth said. “But we came back and made it competitive.”
Jodoin started off strongly, gaining a 5-2 lead against the Tigers’ Katie Goepel, but dropped the following five games, sending them into a tiebreak in the first set. Goepel’s consistency at the baseline gave Jodoin some trouble, but she was able to eke an 8-6 tiebreak win and follow that up with a 6-1 second-set victory.
A battle ensued on court one, as sophomore No. 45 Ester Goldfeld was deadlocked with Graff at the No. 1 singles spot. Goldfeld fought her way to a 7-5 victory in the first set, but could not avoid a tiebreak in the second set. Goldfeld dominated the tiebreak 7-1, putting up the seventh and final point for Duke.
“That was a typical Ester singles match right there,” Ashworth said. “She gets up, and then loses her serve, but when it comes to the end of the match she plays a good tiebreaker.”
Although it was not as stellar of a performance as she was hoping for, Goldfeld is satisfied that she could pull out a win for the team.
“I was getting a little annoyed with myself, honestly,” Goldfeld said. “I didn’t feel like I was playing that great and my opponent was playing well, and even though I wasn’t really happy with the way I played, I played well enough to win today.”
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