“The biggest thing [Friday] was not having played in two weeks,” Duke head coach Jamie Ashworth said.
“You could definitely tell. We went out and just played. We didn’t play to targets we had been working on or any kind of strategy we had been working on. We’re lucky that we have some depth on doubles, but we have to be better with little things we’ve done well with all year. We got off to a decent start in doubles, with two breaks in each match and let it roll from there. I do think we competed well, and that carries us sometimes.”
“[We were] a little bit more disciplined [in singles] than the doubles,” Ashworth said. “We played more toward targets. Our first serve percentage was pretty good. We capitalized on leads that we had, which was good. I think that’s something we have to do tomorrow when we have opportunities to end points or end sets, to take advantage of them."
The other positive to come out of Duke's first-round victory against the Buccaneers (14-9) was a short match time. The Blue Devils got off the courts in two hours and 20 minutes, allowing them to rest up for a quick turnaround against South Carolina.
“I hope [the short match time] helps, especially because two weeks ago we had to play four matches in four days,” Ashworth said. “Our goal was to get off the court quick. We talked about not just coming out in swinging and I think they did a good job of that in singles.”
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