#5 Duke vs. #7 Georgia Tech

The Lady Blue Devils took the court today at noon playing against the Georgia Tech Yellow jackets. We started off with a clean sweep of the doubles with Reka and Ellah cruising to an 8-4 victory, followed by Jess and I. We won 8-2 Amanda and Melissa battled to take the final match winning in a tiebreaker. They won 87. We had our ten-minute break and quickly got ready to take the courts again. We knew that GT was going to come out firing in the singles so we knew we had to be prepared to stay out on the court as long as it was going to take. Finishing her match quickly, Melissa cruised to a 6-3, 6-2 playing beautifully to obtain her 100th match season victory! Congrats Melissa! So proud of you! Next was Reka to come off taking down her opponent 6-3, 6-0. Reka was so pumped and it was awesome to listen to her fire herself up after each point. So tough Reka! There were four matches left (me, Ellah, Amanda, and Jess) and they were all in third sets. I closed out my match winning 2-6, 6-2, 6-2. Awesome! We had officially beaten Georgia Tech! Shortly after, Amanda had retired from her match. It was Ellah and Jess left and they were both battling. Ellah lost 6-4, 3-6, 3-6, but she fought till the very end. She never gives up! Jess soon finished just barely losing as well. (3-6, 7-6, 3-6) Our last season match was finished, and we were victorious.
It is such an awesome feeling to finish our season on such a strong and positive note. I feel that we are definitely match tough and are ready to compete in ACC’s next weekend and NCAA’s shortly after. We are really fighting hard and are hungry to win. WE finished tied for 1st with University of Miami for the ACC Regular Season Champs, and have also been undefeated this season at home!! We have you, the fans, to thank for this. Ya’ll have been so amazing and have really helped pull us through in our tough matches. We are truly grateful and appreciate every single one of you for coming and supporting us. Again, ya’ll are awesome!!! Thank you!!
Today was also Senior Day ☹ This was Tara, Melissa, and Jess’s last season match. They were given beautiful flowers and a plaque. I have been truly honored and blessed to have gotten to know these three outstanding and unique ladies. I am sad that I have only gotten one semester with them, but I would take that over never getting to know them. Melissa and Jess have been awesome leaders through out this entire season and have been huge mentors for me. I will miss these girls terribly. I love you guys!!!
We start the ACC Tournament this Friday where we will be seeded 2. We are pumped and ready to play! It’s at the Cary Tennis Center if any of you would like to come out and watch. It will be a great weekend of tennis!
Until next time………. GO DUKE!!!!!!

Duke vs. Virginia Tech

Immediately following our thoroughly dominating win against Virginia, we had a quick turnaround and played Virginia Tech the next day at noon. Following the routine for our early matches, we had a nice little team breakfast to start of our day, and then hit the court to tear up the Hokies. It was a nice change from our last few matches, since we were actually at HOME, had some amazing fans out, AND had a sunny day. Truly, a very rare combination for us in the last few months. The doubles started off well, with all of us winning the 3 matches; AND, we actually managed to play some solid doubles on all 3 courts...looks like all the doubles drilling is paying off!

Singles was equally solid, and almost everyone won their matches without losing a set, except for Ellah, who struggled a bit with a combination of wrist issues, and her opponent having an out-of-body experience, which is never pleasant. But overall, we won 5 out of 6 singles, and swept the doubles point. Not bad, for a busy weekend! It was especially important for us to get a quick win, since we've been spending SO much time on the courts, and this week will be no different, when we take on Clemson and Georgia Tech back to back to finish out our regular season.

GO DUKE!!

-Reka

Home match: Virginia

Hi everyone!

So we played our first home match, after a long time, on Saturday. Starting with doubles, the teams of Mang and Granson won 8-4, Robinson and Cecil won 8-3, and Zsilinszka (did I spell that right?) and Nze won 8-6. With the 1-0 lead, we were off to a good start. The girls played great singles against a gritty Virginia to close out the match 7-0. Some people won easily, while others toughed it out. Mallory crushed Emily Fraser at no.1 singles 6-1, 6-0. Reka and Ellah played long three-setters and triumphed in the end. Amanda, Melissa, and Jess all won in straight sets.

Overall, we were happy with our performance, and look forward to playing more home matches. After that, hello ACCs! We are all gearing up to play the remainder of our season, and prepare for the national championships. I feel (watching from the stands) that not much can stop the girls from doing as well as they want to in the NCAAs. As of now, we hope to go all the way! So stay tuned in, for exciting results will follow.

Till next time,
Tara

DWT v. UNC

We traveled to UNC for our final away match for the spring. I am still out for the spring so I got to see most of the matches.  The doubles matches were really close on all three courts and although we lost the doubles point I feel as though the girls played fairly well.  We were all really excited to put the doubles matches behind us so we could get a fresh start on singles.  The girls knew that we were all better in singles all down the line up so we didn't stress the doubles losses too much.  We got a few games in until the matches were sent inside due to rain.  Most of the courts got off to really good starts.  I primarily watched Amanda, Melissa and Jess.  Melissa had an overall pretty easy match besides the sketchy line calls.  Amanda traded games with her opponent but fell short in the end.  Jess on the other hand started off slow but dominated in the second and third sets. I did not watch much of mallory's or ellah's matches but mallory absolutely killed UNC's number one and ellah lost in a tough one against their number 2.  This left the clinch up to Reka who entered a third set just as Jess finished her match.  It was really exciting to watch Reka close it out.  She got an early lead in the third and we knew she would be able to close it out when her opponent started cramping..thank god for Reka's long points.  

Although the score was close at 4-3 I never felt as though UNC had a chance to win.  I have so much confidence in my team because of their talent and the way they have been playing recently.  I would rather be playing but I am really excited to see us play some of the tougher teams in a couple weeks!

UVA

Well, we lost 4-3 to the undefeated, #1 ranked team in the country INDOORS. I guess we are supposed to be happy with that result. I mean, we were playing with an injured Carleton and without Wietoska and THE SCORE WAS 4-3 WITH THE #1 RANKED TEAM...INDOORS!!! I say INDOORS because UVA doesn't lose indoors. 

Should we be happy? That's a tough question. A lot of teams would be happy with this result and there is no fault in that. We took the doubles point (DP) from a team that has lost only 1 previous DP all year. They arguably have the best DP in the country and we took it from them with two of our doubles players sitting. Needless to say, we played well with the make-shift teams that we put out there. 

Overall, I think we realized how good we can be and how far we have come and it gave us a benchmark for where we need to go. We didn't know how close or how far we were from it. Now we know. We are getting closer but there is still a lot of work to be done.

So yes, I am happy about the match but I am not happy about the loss.

Some quick facts:

-We had wins over two of the top-ranked doubles teams in the country, #6 and #14.  

-Dylan Arnould beat the #20 ranked player in the country in straight sets (highest ranked win in dual season play by a Duke player). 

-David Holland stepped up and played his best match all year

-Best of all is that he didn't do anything special. He just realized that he was good enough and trusted himself.

Thanks for Reading!