Duke women's tennis opens spring home slate with Elon

Duke and Elon are less than an hour’s drive apart, but the two squads have never crossed paths in dual match play.

That changes Wednesday, when the No. 16 Blue Devils will host the Phoenix at 3 p.m. at the Sheffield Indoor Tennis Center, looking to open spring head-to-head competition with a win for the ninth straight season.

Duke will also look to continue its home success of the past five seasons, entering its first of 12 home matches with a record of 53-6 at Sheffield Indoor Tennis Center and Ambler Stadium since 2010-11.

“It’s important for our group to start off and play as well as we can,” Duke head coach Jamie Ashworth said. “We have a fairly young group except for one fifth-year senior—almost half of them haven’t played in dual matches before. It’s important that we play smart and play with energy and control what we can control, which is our effort and intensity.”

The Blue Devils lost a decorated trio of seniors to graduation in Rachel Kahan, Annie Mulholland and Ester Goldfeld, who guided the squad to a 17-10 record in the spring season last year with just one loss at home—a 4-3 upset at the hands of Georgia Tech to end an eight-match winning streak. The squad earned an at-large bid to the NCAA team competition as the 20th-ranked team, where it fell 0-4 to then-No. 7 Georgia.

With three freshmen—the No. 2 recruiting class of Ellyse Hamlin, Jessica Ho and Kaitlyn McCarthy—coming in to fill those big shoes, Duke will look to senior Beatrice Capra to guide the underclassmen through its grueling dual match schedule, featuring nine squads ranked in the top 20 of the most recent ITA poll.

Capra is on pace to become the 25th player in Duke history to surpass the 100-win mark with 77 singles victories on her resume, after earning double-digit wins on court one for the third time in her career in 2015. The Ellicott City, Md., native earned first-team All-ACC honors and the Inaugural Charles Hamilton Hargrave Award—presented to the team’s most valuable player—for her efforts last season. Capra tops the list of four Blue Devils in the ITA singles rankings at No. 28, ahead of No. 29 McCarthy, No. 70 Hamlin and No. 79 Chalena Scholl.

“From a coaching standpoint, if your hardest workers are your best players, it makes it a lot easier because other people see that work ethic and aspire to have that work ethic,” Ashworth said. “[Capra] works tremendously hard and has done everything that we have asked of her, and that trickles down to the other girls on the team.”

For redshirt freshman Christina Makarova, the adjustment to collegiate play will be even more challenging as she spent the majority of last season recovering from surgery and did not pick up a racket.  The highly-touted recruit competed in only three matches in the fall of 2015.

“She has hardly played any tennis over the last year and a half,” Ashworth said. “The important thing for her is understanding the process—she’s going to have days where she is great and days where she struggles a little bit. Tennis is such a recall sport and she’s going into that a little bit blind. But the more she plays, the more she will definitely get that back.”

Makarova competed in two matches at the UNLV Invitational last weekend and left Las Vegas with an even ledger. The San Diego native will have her next opportunity to get back in a rhythm Wednesday.

Elon (0-1) kicked off its spring season with a loss in Chapel Hill against No. 4 North Carolina Jan. 10. The Tar Heels dispatched the Phoenix 6-1, with the only point for the visiting squad coming from court two singles. Sophomore Erica Braschi earned the win against Marika Akkerman by retirement in the second set.

Braschi and her four classmates make up most of Elon’s roster, joining lone senior Taylor Casey. The Phoenix welcomed three new faces in the fall, including junior Natalia Janowicz—a transfer from N.C. State.

Janowicz played in a dual match against the Blue Devils during her freshman season but suffered swift defeats against Mulholland in singles 2-6, 2-6 and doubles against Mulholland and Scholl 2-8.

Although Duke will see unfamiliar faces across the net Wednesday, the squad’s preparation for its first dual match will be no different with the focus on the team’s intensity and focus.

“I told the girls it doesn’t matter if we are playing Elon or [North Carolina] or Florida, our preparation needs to be the same and our mindset needs to be the same,” Ashworth said. “Especially since we are so young, we have to get into those patterns of how we prepare and what we do mentally and physically before we play.”