Tennis is back.
In the newly renovated Sheffield Indoor Tennis Center and with a few new faces, the 15th-ranked Blue Devils opened their 2024 season with a 5-2 win against SMU Saturday afternoon.
“There was a lot of emotion all week… opening a new building, the nerves of a new match and the excitement of a new season. I’m glad we got through the match…” head coach Jamie Ashworth said after the win. “I’m proud of how we handled ourselves.”
While the match started out rocky, with two Blue Devil pairs opening doubles play with dropped games, Brianna Shvets and Iuliia Bryzgalova secured the doubles point for Duke on court three with a comeback win.
Junior Ellie Coleman and freshman Shavit Kimchi opened their match strong as they took a resounding 3-0 lead, only dropping two games overall to win 6-2. Junior Emma Jackson and senior Karolina Berankova never recovered from the slow start as they trailed the entire match, falling 6-2 — and sending the doubles point to the tiebreaker of Shvets and Bryzgalova.
After dropping the first game, Shvets and Bryzgalova faced four deuce points as they forced the match to a first-to-seven tiebreaker for the doubles point. The pair only dropped three points in the tiebreaker, winning their match — and the doubles point — 7-6 (7-3).
“They never let the situation get too big…” Ashworth said after the match about Shvets and Bryzgalova’s doubles endurance. “It’s going to be like that all year for us. We’re going to have to fight.”
Duke continued to fight throughout singles play, only dropping two singles matches.
Emma Jackson dominated the first set of her matchup, 6-1, before Hadley Doyle retired in the set break due to injury. Shvets, sophomore Katie Codd and Coleman all carried their first sets and eventually secured wins.
However, closing out second sets proved difficult for the Blue Devils as multiple players lost their leads late. Shvets, despite having a 5-1 lead in the second, dropped two straight games before securing a 6-3 second set win.
Freshman Shavit Kimchi also had a 5-1 lead in the second set after dropping the first, before her opponent forced the match to a tiebreaker. Due to Coleman clinching the match for Duke with her 6-2, 6-4 win, Kimchi and her opponent Taylor Johnson played a ten-point tiebreak as opposed to a third set.
Despite having a strong opening second set, Kimchi dropped the tiebreak 10-7, marking the Blue Devils’ second singles loss of the afternoon.
Kimchi took on a large role in her first spring collegiate match as she played No. 1 singles for Duke. After Chloe Beck’s departure last year, the top singles slot was a point of concern for the Blue Devils.
“I honestly don’t know,” Ashworth said about whether or not this was a permanent position for Kimchi. “We’re just gonna keep playing and keep rotating and keep moving people around and try to put the best team on the court every time.”
Kimchi is not without her accolades, despite just beginning her collegiate career. She recorded three singles wins in the fall, and became the first Blue Devil to open her collegiate career with a pair of top-30 wins since the 2010-11 season.
“We felt like she had some big wins in the fall and plays a big enough game to handle that position. Doesn’t matter to me — freshman, senior, doesn’t matter,” Ashworth said.
With an offseason and fall play that left some questions for the Blue Devils, the win on Saturday marked a new beginning.
“We hope that we compete and we hope that we fight, and I think we did that,” Ashworth said. The upcoming season brings opportunities for new records as Ashworth is now three wins away from 600 career match victories.
Duke will have to carry on its energy this week as it faces a double-header on Thursday against N.C. Central and Charlotte before a match against Illinois Sunday.
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