Duke faced an early test Friday against No. 10 Pepperdine, who entered this season coming off a Final Four appearance.
After opening the match by conceding the doubles point, the eleventh-ranked Blue Devils made a steady comeback in singles, with junior Katie Codd clinching a 4-3 victory for the team. Friday’s match in Sheffield Indoor Tennis Center marked the second time Codd has clinched a victory for Duke in her career.
“[Codd] handled herself great,” head coach Jamie Ashworth said. “She struggled a little bit in our first match, and that match right there should give her a lot of confidence.”
With the match tied 3-3, only Codd could seal a second consecutive win for the Blue Devils. After winning the first set and trailing 3-1 in the second set, Codd’s shots sped up. Keeping her footwork flexible, she responded to her opponent’s overtures with long volleys and hard-hit forehands. Codd’s consistency paid off, winning five consecutive games for a 6-3 match-clinching victory.
“I was just trying not to think about it, because for me, in order to play well, I have to think less, and I just try to just trust my shots and trust how I play,” Codd said. “… I was just trying to focus on every point, every game, on what I could do to try to get through that match.”
The Blue Devils’ doubles performance started out strong, with senior Emma Jackson and sophomore Shavit Kimchi dominating their matchup 6-1. Jackson and Kimchi’s on-court rapport was notable, with both striking strongly from the baseline and complementing each other’s technique. The duo wasted little time disposing of its opponents, pushing them all over the court and controlling the pace of the game.
Freshman Irina Balus and senior Ellie Coleman appeared to falter early on, but came back to hold out longer than the other courts. Pepperdine started in the driver’s seat, winning the first two games. Balus and Coleman then found their rhythm, tying the set 4-4 following an intense rally.
After freshman Ava Krug and sophomore Eleana Yu fell 6-1, court 1 was the only doubles match remaining. Intense, energetic back-and-forths and on-court conversations became all the more frequent as the game progressed. Duke, up 6-5, lost the next game to force a tiebreaker, which followed a similar plot to the rest of the game. Down 3-0, Balus and Coleman fought back, but the Waves won 7-5.
“I think if we lost the doubles point quickly, we would have been emotionally down a little bit,” head coach Jamie Ashworth said. “But we weren’t. We came out and we knew we gave ourselves a fighting chance in that doubles.”
In the singles rounds, Kimchi, Balus and Yu established strong leads over their opponents early on and won their first sets 6-3, 6-4 and 6-1, respectively. Yu, despite losing the first game, proceeded to command six straight games. Her shots grew gradually more confident and picked up speed as the set wore on, establishing a dominance that would carry her through the rest of the match.
On court 1, Jackson’s games against No. 13 Savannah Broadus became gradually more intense as the La Grange Park, Ill., native hit long, straight shots from the baseline. Despite trailing 5-2 at one point, Jackson’s style proved effective, with low serves and cut-like volleys close to the net narrowing the margin to a 5-5 tie. Broadus narrowly defeated Jackson 7-5 in two similarly hard-fought games.
In the second set, Balus led 3-0 before her opponent, Liam Oved, retired. Meanwhile, Kimchi never trailed on court 5, taking the second set 6-2. After Yu won her second set 6-4 and Coleman lost both sets 6-3 and 6-2, the match score now stood at 3-2.
Second sets were well underway on the five remaining courts by the time Codd began hers. Her controlled play had given her a 6-3 edge in the first, with firm shots travelling in their intended direction and dictating the game’s rhythm.
Codd found herself in a hard-fought set amid long rallies, with both players trying to edge the other out. Relying on a solid forehand, she kept her game clinical and patient.
“We were trying to get Katie to hit the ball a little bit higher than she normally does, to get the ball up on [Taylor Goetz] and then also be a little bit more aggressive than she normally is,” Ashworth said. “Even at the end, on the big points, I was telling her to try to hit the ball to [Goetz’s] forehand corner, which was going to open up the other side of the court.”
Jackson’s match remained the more fast-paced and aggressive of the two, initially leading 3-1 with more varied shot placement before falling 6-4. Following Jackson’s loss, Codd needed to win to clinch the match, and her strong second-set comeback sealed the deal.
Next up for the Blue Devils is a home double-header Monday against Virginia Tech and N.C. Central.
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Samanyu Gangappa is a Trinity sophomore and local/national news editor for the news department.