Duke's afternoon session Tuesday at the Sheffield Indoor Tennis Center was an unusual sight—practice was... crowded?
“We were joking [Tuesday] that this is the largest practice we’ve had in two years,” Duke head coach Jamie Ashworth said. “To be able to actually work on things and not have to worry about who’s hurting… [our depth] is a good problem to have.”
All eight players on the Duke roster have returned following a tumultuous spring 2013 season. Sophomore Beatrice Capra, the No. 3-ranked singles player in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association preseason poll, and junior Ester Goldfeld, ranked No. 45, both missed time last spring but returned to compete in the fall season. Senior Rachel Kahan, who also was sidelined in the spring after undergoing Tommy John surgery to repair her elbow, has recently set foot on the practice courts and looked fine in competitive intra-squad sets, Ashworth said.
Senior Hanna Mar is the other nationally ranked singles player the Blue Devils boast, coming into the season at No. 49 in the ITA poll. Despite the national recognition that some of his players have received, Ashworth is understandably hesitant to rank his players.
“We have eight girls who can definitely play and compete,” he said. “And we’re going to give people different opportunities.”
One of the dangers of a full, talented roster in any sport is that, beyond creating difficult personnel decisions for the coach, it can breed discontent among team members who are struggling or are overly competitive. In team tennis—an individual sport that accumulates a team result—the underlying threat of emotional turbulence lurks even closer to the surface.
Nevertheless, Mar isn’t concerned about this being an issue for the Duke squad, which enters the season ranked No. 10 in the ITA poll.
“We do have a lot of depth, tennis-wise, which is a really great thing because we have eight fantastic players, and practices are great,” Mar said. “But in off-court team stuff, we’ve got seniors, freshmen—everybody is fitting into a different spot on the team, and it’s creating this really great team environment.”
Ashworth reiterated the Blue Devils' focus on supporting each other during the season and the importance of his players maintaining a selfless approach.
“You need a team that really believes in its system and [players] who don’t worry about what number [in the ladder] they’re playing,” Ashworth said. “In other people’s eyes it matters, but in our eyes, it doesn’t matter—they’re doing everything they can to win for each other and for their school. It’s something we definitely emphasize and work hard on throughout the year.”
One of the areas where Duke can and will tinker with the lineup is with its doubles pairings. Two Blue Devil duos are ranked—junior Annie Mulholland and Goldfeld are ranked No. 14 nationally, and Goldfeld and senior Marianne Jodoin are at No. 27—but since Goldfeld is a lynchpin in both, only one of the two pairs can play in a given match.
“Our singles can compete with anyone in the country,” Ashworth said. “And then if we can win doubles points in big matches, then it puts a lot of pressure on other teams to beat us in four singles matches.”
For the indoor portion of the season, doubles pairings might have even less room for error. As part of an ITA initiative to shorten overall match length, doubles matches will consist of one set to six games rather than the pro set to eight games of previous years. In this experimental format, Ashworth will be taking the opportunity to try out various pairings to see what works best with the talented squad.
Ashworth's options include freshmen Chalena Scholl and Alyssa Smith, both top recruits who gained experience playing for Duke in the fall season. With the addition of the young guns, as well as the much-heralded return of the upperclassmen, the Blue Devils are excited to get things started in 2014.
“All the people who weren’t playing with us last year—it’s so great to have them back on the court,” Mar said. “It brings a really good energy because they’re so excited to be here. And then the freshmen have been great—they’ve been working so hard, and I know they’re ready, too.”
Duke opens its spring season at home this Sunday against William & Mary.
Correction: An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of head coach Jamie Ashworth. The Chronicle regrets the error.
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