New conference foes, same Duke grit.
Last week, No. 4 Duke traveled to the West Coast to compete against No. 16 Cal and No. 25 Stanford for the first time since the Golden State schools officially joined the ACC. On Friday, following three overruled calls on the clinch court, the Blue Devils defeated the Golden Bears by default. Duke had another narrow 4-3 win Saturday against Stanford, which was only the second time this year that the Blue Devils played back-to-back matches.
At 6-5, 30-all in the second set on court four singles, Blue Devil Eleana Yu was two points from clinching victory against Chidimma Okpara, her former Stanford teammate. Despite losing the first set 4-6 and starting off the second in a 0-3 game deficit, Okpara had fought back against 55th-ranked Yu with long rally points and aggressive net play.
At 30-all, the Mason, Ohio, native traded deep shots with Okpara before luring the Cardinal in with a dropshot. Okpara answered with a dropshot of her own before ending up at the net just in time to watch Yu’s return sail over her head in a beautifully-placed lob. The strategic point brought the game to 40-30 — match point. Yu finished off the match with a strong serve that was returned long by Okpara.
“I’ve been looking forward to this moment for a long, long time,” Yu said of playing Stanford. “I think that changed how I approached it, because I had that background, and it gave me an even greater motivation to succeed today. Of course, it came down to me on that last court, which was special.”
Yu’s position as the clinch court came after Duke won the overall doubles point as well as singles courts five and six, but took losses on singles courts one, two and three.
On doubles court two, Blue Devils Shavit Kimchi and Ava Krug took a hard 6-2 loss to the 83rd-ranked Cardinal pairing of Caroline Driscoll and Valencia Xu. Combined with a 6-3 win against California on Friday, the tandem’s overall record moved to 5-4.
Duke’s Irina Balus and Ellie Coleman outplayed Stanford’s Valerie Glozman and Connie Ma on doubles court one to take a 5-2 lead. The Blue Devils closed the deal with a simple net volley to bring the final to 6-2. On court three, Emma Jackson and Liv Hovde secured the doubles point for Duke with a 6-2 win over the Cardinals. This marked nine consecutive wins for Jackson and Hovde, moving the pair to a 10-1 season record and 8-1 in ACC play.
No. 120 Coleman won her 10th-straight singles match with a easy 6-0, 6-0 win against Stanford’s Emma Sun on court six, while No. 14 Balus was defeated 6-1, 6-1 by No. 13 Connie Ma on court one. This was Balus’ second singles loss of the weekend after falling in a tough 7-5, 7-6 (7-2) match against Cal’s Alsola.
Despite entering Saturday’s match on an impressive win against Cal’s No. 25 Mao Mushika, Hovde struggled to find momentum in her second set at Stanford, resulting in a 7-6, 6-0 loss on singles court two.
Kimchi executed a comfortable 6-2, 6-0 win on court five before Jackson fell 6-4, 6-4 on court three. With the overall team score now at 3-3, the Blue Devils raced to cheer on Yu on court four.
“Having the team cheer me on definitely helps me on the court,” Yu said. “Everyone already knows me as a louder player with my celebrations, and having them build on that and support that just helps even more.”
The Blue Devils’ hard-fought win Saturday was a shift from their default victory against Cal the day prior.
The match against the Golden Bears came down to court five, where Kimchi faced Cal’s Greta Greco Lucchina. After splitting sets, Lucchina led 6-5 in the third, where the Cardinal faced her third overruled call of the match. The final overrule handed Kimchi a default win, securing Duke’s narrow 4-3 victory Friday.
This was the first time in Ashworth’s 29 years as a head coach that his team had won by default.
“It's a tough way to win a match, to be honest with you,” said Ashworth. “I think you have to do a lot of things in a match to be deserving. We found ways to win both matches. Good teams have to be able to do that.”
Duke will close out regular season play this weekend with 11 a.m., home matches Saturday and Sunday against Florida State and Miami.
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