"A day without laughter is a day wasted."- Chaplin

Dear Wonderful Fans,

With the conclusion of a really great weekend, we are off to National Team Indoors in just over a week! This is an awesome opportunity for us to play some of the best teams in the nation. Jamie presented us with our famous tennis center quote on Friday: “ We set standards that make others wish they played for Duke.” After the playing this weekend and the overall energy, we are definitely ready to live up to the challenge of setting a higher standard for ourselves and for the other teams out there.

In this blog I’d like to introduce you all to the three honorary members of our team, our three lucky charms— Albert, the tennis fairy, Dobby the gnome and Bumper the Leprechaun. This may seem a little strange to some of you (DWT is sane, don’t worry) but I think that these three little characters have earned their way into our team and have become an integral part of the locker room.

Here’s a little background: Dobby, personally named by our Harry Potter wiz- Hanna- lives in his own little garden house on our windowsill. His dear friend, Albert, who has a Santa Claus-ish beard, BRAIDED EYEBROWS and who is dressed in a very abstract glittery outfit, has his very own tennis racket and resides next to Dobby. Oh, and Albert originated in one of Trice’s Christmas gifts last year. Big Ray’s little, green leprechaun, Bumper, is cased in one of the smallest containers I’ve ever seen. Despite us begging her to release him, Rachel refuses because apparently he’s guarding a gold coin (I don’t know any Irish folklore but apparently a leprechaun cannot stop guarding this coin to bring luck.). Anyways, Bumper lives on the same windowsill in our locker room and accompanies Big Ray in her matches each week.

Why are these abstract charms so important? Well, they’re our lucky charms of course but more importantly, they have become a kind of pre-match locker room attraction and ritual for us— they make us laugh!

There is no denying that everyone gets a little nervous before matches. This is good. A little nerves, when managed correctly, makes one more ready to play and more energetic on the court. But it is when nerves get the better of us that we stop seeing the fun in playing and we become too serious. I know that each girl will tell you that they play best when they’re having fun out there. While they’re having fun, they transfer the positive energy to the rest of the team and before long, we’re all having fun, we’re positive and more often than not, we’re winning. I think that the rest of the team will agree with me when I say that there’s no better way to have fun than to laugh… and that’s precisely what our lucky charms represent in our locker room.

Whether it is a funny story, a joke, or just us being silly, every girl on this team knows how to laugh at themselves and with others. We try and bring a light atmosphere to every practice, match and event so that we aren’t only getting the job done, but we’re having fun doing it. Beyond teammates, DWT is a wonderful friendship circle and we’re proud of it! And thanks, to our three little lucky charms, we have daily reminders of the importance of having fun together.

Next weekend, we play Northwestern at noon on Saturday (4^th Feb.). We hope that you can all come out and support us because we always value you all cheering us on.

GO DUKE!

Yours in Tennis,

Monica Gorny and the rest of DWT.

Striving for Greatness

Dear Wonderful Fans,

I’m happy to say that our first dual match weekend was a great success— not only in terms of the results which were obviously very pleasing, but also in terms of how our team was able to come together, work together and really play for each other. Thank-you so much for coming out and supporting us. It always means so much to hear you cheering and it makes our jobs on court all the more pleasant and much easier!

Before our match against William and Mary on Friday, Jamie provided us with a really meaningful quote that I think sums up what we’re trying to achieve— “you don’t have to be great to start but you have to start to become great.” This weekend was the start to an extensive season ahead. Our ultimate goal is to win the NCAA Championship in May but in order to get there, we need to apply ourselves to every match so that we can be as prepared as possible for what lies ahead. No match is going to be easy and I think that each girl has realized and prepared herself for this.

This weekend was the first dual match for the four freshmen and the first time that they were playing for a team rather than for themselves. Rather then fret and fear the matches, they all approached this challenge with such ease and poise! Additionally, each of them did an amazing job of cheering on the rest of the team and really looking out for one another. With a new team (especially as much as 4 new freshmen), the team aspect sometimes can be difficult to develop because of differing dynamics, but I think that this group of girls is truly here to play as a unit rather than as separate individuals.

As we move forward, we definitely hope to build upon this weekend from all aspects. We are trying to fulfill our responsibilities to the team by looking after ourselves off the court and making sure that we’re staying healthy and rested so that we can perform at our best when the times come. This means many sacrifices in other aspects of our lives, but we have a goal and a well-established belief that the team is the priority right now. As the famous DWT saying goes: “TEAM FIRST!”

Next weekend we play the first rounds of the National Indoor tournament. We play against College of Charleston at 2PM on Friday and if we win, we play Illinois/ Winthrop on Saturday at 6PM. Please come out and cheer us on! And, if you see us around, don’t be afraid to ask us anything or talk to us because we really want to get to know you a little better and I think it would be awesome if you got to know us off the court a little better as well. We have some real goofballs on the team but I don’t think this is always clear from our serious on -court selves!

GO DUKE!

Yours in Tennis,

Monica Gorny and the rest of DWT

Welcome Back!

Dear Wonderful Fans,

I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas break! This goes without saying, but DWT is tremendously grateful for your support thus far and we hope that you are as ready as we are for a much-anticipated season. Similarly to last season, this blog will serve as a weekly update for you and will provide you with some “insider” information about our team. But, more importantly, I hope that this will be a means by which you get to know this year’s team a little better. As I’m sure you know, we have four new additions to the team this year— Annie Mulholland, Beatrice Capra, Ester Goldfeld and Monica Turewitz. My hope is that you get to know each one of these special girls for their off-court personalities as much as for their on- court, beastly selves by the end of this semester.

A brief recap from the end of last semester: we had the opportunity to participate in a very rewarding, team bonding experience by reaching out to the Durham community. We visited The Girls Club mentoring program where we gave a brief presentation in which we introduced ourselves and talked about the value of teamwork and how this is applicable to one’s life outside the athletic world. After this, we presented each of the 25, excited children with their own Babolat rackets. This experience was not only beneficial to the children but it made us realize how important it is to use our privileged positions as Duke student-athletes to help and inspire the less fortunate. Additionally, the presentation forced us to reflect on the value of teamwork and the meaning of being a good teammate, which will be tremendously important in defining our successes this semester.

Back to this semester: This weekend, we had the opportunity to play some great matches at the UNLV Invitational as a prelude to the dual match season. I think that each of us now has a better understanding of the things that we need to work on personally this week as we move towards our first dual match. Off-court, this was the first time in Vegas for a lot of us and we had the opportunity to explore the crazy casino world (without actually participating obviously). While the slot machines are the usual attraction in this part of the country, our pyramidal-shaped Luxor hotel provided us with enough areas of exploration. Hanna’s mathematical mind could not get enough of the diagonal path of the inclinators as opposed to the normal up/down movement of elevators. Other attractions included dining at various lavish restaurants and losing ourselves in the AMAZING four-story M&M World. Oh, and obviously we spent a lot of time relating our experiences to the wild adventures depicted in “The Hangover” movie.

This weekend we will embark on our dual match journey with a match against William and Mary on Friday at 5PM and a match against Indiana on Sunday at noon. I know that we are extremely excited and ready to prove to you and to ourselves that we can reach our goal of winning this year’s NCAA Championship. However, every journey begins with a single step and we realize that we have a lot of work ahead of us to achieve this goal.

Please come out and support us and BE LOUD (tennis is a LOUD sport)!

GO DUKE!

Yours in tennis,

Monica Gorny and the rest of DWT.