Lighting that FIRE!!

So our trip to National Indoors was pretty successful. We had some ups and downs but we learned a lot and really came together as a team. We had an easy win over Wisconsin 7-0 which was a great start. The courts were really fast, so it took some adjustments from everyone, (some struggled more than others (me)), but after that match we were really fired up for our chance to take on the #1 team in the nation- Northwestern. We got down pretty quick in doubles which was unlike us, but we did a great job of evening things out in the first few singles matches. Everyone battled really hard and before I knew it, I was starting my third set and the score was tied at 3-3. It didn't end well. I lost 7-5 in the third but my team was very supportive and understanding. We were determined to come out the next day with fire and purpose and we took down #4 Baylor, with Ellah closing out a tough third set to give us the W. 

The trip really made us believe that we are one of the best teams in the nation and that we can take down anyone. I just can't wait until two weeks from now when we get another shot at Northwestern. Losing a close match like that gives you a certain toughness and desire to win that you can't get anywhere else. I am so confident in my team and hopefully they will be confident in me if I ever get the opportunity again to close out a match for us. Stay tuned because we this team this season is going all the way!!!

Be back soon...

Melissa

Shutout #2 (7-0)

Today at 12 o'clock we took the court to begin our doubles matches against Princeton University. We knew that this was not going to be an easy match and that we needed to be on fire from the very beginning. Ellah and Reka cruised through their match with an 8-0 victory in about half an hour. Next to finish was me and Jess, winning 8-1. Then, we walked over and got to watch Amanda and Melissa take down Princeton's number 1 team. They played extrememly solid and their volleys are a thing of beauty to watch. They compliment each other's games very well on the court.

We are now up to a 1-0 lead and we get our ten minute break between singles and doubles. We all go to the locker room to refuel and refocused for our upcoming singles matches. We knew that these singles matches were going to be no easy task. Jamie's quote for the day was, "Opportunity is disguised as hard work, which is why it is usually missed." (something like that) Our goal was to not let them have a chance to gain momentum. We had done exceptionally well with that in the doubles and we were determined to carry that over into our singles. We walked onto the court and did our usual chant and were fired up and ready to play!

First to finish was Melissa winning 61 60. Everytime I looked over she was either hitting a beutiful putaway volley or a big groundstroke winner. She was on fire! I finished next with a 62 61 win. My main focus was just to have big targets and really pull her off the court in order to work my way into the net. I was happy with how I played and was excited to watch my others teammates successfully close out their matches.

Jess's match was more of a mental match today. She breezed through her match winning 61 62, but this was no easy feat. The girl she was playing, Blakely Ashley, had been a long time opponent of Jess. They were from the same section and had played one another a lot through out juniors. There is a certain personal pressure that is added when you are faced in one of these situation. Jess handled it beautifully though. Those matches are more self-rewarding than playing someone you know nothing about. Proud of you Jess!

Reka closed out her match with a 64 60 victory. The points that I was watching in her first set seemed to be a battle. The girl was hanging right there with her and was not giving her many free points. However, once Reka captured that first set it was smooth sailing from there. The girl lost her aggressiveness and started going for too much. Reka breezed through the next set fairly quickly.

The last two matches left were Ellah and Amanda. These both went into third set tiebreakers and were very entertaining to watch. Ellah had lost the first set 61. The girl she was playing was just not missing and hitting a lot of winners. However, Ellah didn't panic and just fought her way back quickly to win the second set 61. From there it was all downhill. She cruised through the tiebraker winning it 10 1.

Amanda was the last one left. She had won the first set 64 and fought hard through the second just barely losing it 63. On to another tiebreaker. It was extremely close all the way through and the crowd was really getting into it. Amanda and her opponent were fighting for every ball and going for all their shots. It was quite thrilling to watch, and was so sweet when Amanda closed it out winning the breaker 13-11. That was close!

That completed our 7-0 victory over Princeton!

Those who do not know I am the new "freshy" on the team since just arriving this January. I cannot express how blessed I feel to be able to play and compete with these awesome girls. They have fight and are hungry to win. Every time we step out on the court we go with a purpose. I am honored to be apart of this team and represent Duke. We enjoy what we do, and we hope all of you enjoy watching. Thanks for all of your support. It really means a lot to us.
Until next time.......

Mallory Cecil

Shutout...7-0

Yesterday afternoon we played Indiana University. I remember travelling to Bloomington last year and having a tough match against them. Last year, we beat them 6-1 but I recall the scores being close across all courts. Yesterday was different. Before every home match, Jamie writes a quote on the board in the locker room for everyone to read. The quote is the first message we see as we walk into the room. Yesterday's message was, "If you don't make things happen, things will happen to you." When discussing this quote, Jamie stressed the importance of each player being aggressive from the first point and gaining the momentum early on in the match. His words definitely stuck because we were back in the locker room within 30 minutes discussing tactics for singles! Jess and Mallory dominated on court 2, winning 8-0. Reka and I finished within minutes of them on court 3 with a score of 8-1, to clinch the doubles point. Melissa and Amanda were on the court a little bit longer, eventually pulling through 8-3. They played the same team last year and went to a tiebreak, but yesterday they wasted no time getting an early lead and holding on to it.

Singles for the most part was not much different from the doubles. While I was trying to focus on my match, every time I looked up at the scoreboard everyone was in command of their first set. One person in particular, Jess, was steam rolling through her match. When I sat down on the bench at 2-1, I looked up and saw she was already up 4-0!!! With that said, she was the first one off the court coming away with a 6-1, 6-0 victory. I finished shortly after her, winning 6-1, 6-1. My opponent was a decent player and had not yet lost a match this season. Thus, I went on the court taking Jamie's advice, and made things happen. I felt I played aggressively from the start, which carried over through the entire match. I was happy with the way I played and to be off the court quickly. As soon as I finished, I wasn't surprised to see Reka up 6-1, 5-0. She has a knack for frustrating players with her style of play, and most players are dumb founded after the first few games, giving up easily. Hey, no complaints here!! A win is a win.

Mallory had a close one on the court next to me, but the combination of some good defensive skills and big forehands on decisive points proved to be too much for her opponent and she won 6-4. Taking the momentum from the first set, she held on to her lead and won the second set 6-3. Melissa and Amanda were in control their first sets, but had close second sets which is to be expected. Usually when you win the first set decisively, your opponent changes their game plan to fight back. But in the end, both of them demonstrated why they are a part of the 9th ranked team and closed out their respective matches in two sets. Overall, everyone was happy to have won all their matches and have an early night. We play Princeton tomorrow at 12pm. Thanks to everyone for their continuous support. GO DUKE!!

Dylan Arnould- ITA Indoor wrap-up

2:00pm. That was the original start time for our match Sunday against Penn State, after coming off our rough loss to Florida State on Saturday.  3:00pm is when we actually started, and 7:35pm was our scheduled flight out of State College Airport.  Damn Oklahoma State was being a pest and fighting back against FSU and keeping us from starting our match in the four court Penn State facility (which Ramsey plans to complain to the ITA about…I mean, four courts for a dual match in a national tournament?).  Anyway, all was well because we managed to clinch a 4-0 victory by about 5:45p, leaving ample time for us to shower and get to the airport in time for our flight (which is good since there are only like 3 flights a day in and out of the State College Airport and ours was the last one of the day).

As for the match, well, I’ll go so far as to offer some picture of what happened.  In doubles, Kiril and Al played another solid match and knocked off the number one Penn State team, despite one of their opponents’ persistent grunts about the lucky and fluky shots that Al and Kiril kept hitting, which in actuality were probably pretty typical shots for them.  At number two Reid and I played arguably our best match of the season, cleaning up 8-3, including a bizarre shank overhead that I was incredibly lucky to make on break point against us (especially since it came after 2 or 3 complete duff volleys in a row).  Torsten and Holland were down 7-2 but fought back the 7-6 when the match was then stopped since we had clinched the doubles point 2-0 (in this tournament format they were stopping all doubles play once the point was decided).

  Singles wise, it was a good day.  Kiril played awesome at line two even though he was sick the whole weekend.  Reid won two pretty close sets to knock off his big serving but erratic opponent, who was quite entertaining to watch with his bizarre attitude and colorful reactions to any good shots Reid hit (as if Reid should not be allowed to hit any good shots…How does he think Reid got to be ranked so high in the first place?).  Anyway, Jared fought through to win in straight sets as well, pulling out quite a few close games and showing some inspiring flare.  Reid’s win gave us the 4-0 win, and with our flight less than 2 hours from departure, my match was stopped midway through the second set, along with Torsten and Holland’s matches that had only just gotten underway (a consequence of there only being four courts…)

And yes, we missed most of the Superbowl, but we did catch some of the second half in the airport, until we had to board our flight and missed the last few minutes of the game…Not like we missed anything interesting though, I mean what actually happened after it was 20-14 Pittsburgh late in the 4th?

Quotes of the Trip:

I want to take the opportunity to offer some of the best quotes from this weekend, spoken by some of the truly unique characters on our team.  I will leave the quotes anonymous, but I think they can help give a glimpse of some of the humor that was pervasive during our travels this past weekend.

“Hey, name five countries in South America”  Response: “Brazil, Argentina, Portugal……”

“Do you want me to get you a cookie?  I’ll go get you a cookie.  I don’t want a cookie, but I’ll go get one for you, ok?”

Dining Highlights:

Foccia Luna in State College right down the street from the Courtyard Marriot where we were staying.  Highly recommended,  great pizza, the salmon was quite a hit as well.

Dining Low Point:

Ruby Tuesday’s.  I know it’s harsh to say, but in comparison to any similar chain restaurants (Chili’s, Applebee’s, Olive Garden, Outback) it’s really lacking.  Do they really need to just add like 4 lbs of cheese or butter to every dish, and even then it still doesn’t taste good?

Best Bonding Location: 

The hotel hot tub.  I wasn’t too keen on it so I didn’t actually go, but that was the place if you were soul searching, or so I heard.

Trip Theme:

Emergen-C fizzing drink mix.  Whether you were one of the sick people on the trip or not, you were likely having at least 2 packets of Emergen-C per day, with some people having upwards of 6 or 7.  32 Vitamins and Minerals, you going to argue against that?

We leave on Thursday to play Illinois on Friday night, and then on to South Bend to face the Fighting Irish on Sunday.  They are going to be battles, but I have a good feeling about them, and we owe both of these teams some revenge from the last two years.  Wish us luck, and thanks for your reading and keeping up with our progress throughout the year.

Until next time,

Dylan Arnould

 

 

 

We're Going to Madison!

For the first time in two years Duke Women's tennis is heading to Madison, Wisconsin as one of sixteen teams to make it to the National Indoor tournament! We are so excited! This is a great opportunity to play against the best teams in the country and we are definitely up to the challenge :)

Today's match was a successful one against the Ohio State Buckeyes. Despite some unforeseen challenges that arose with my being sick with food poisoning and Tara's nagging knee injuries, we were able to make it through the day. Doubles started off with a bang with Reka and Ella winning a promising match against a tough #3 team. It definitely gave both Melissa and me a boost of confidence to see our two underclassman playing so well. Jess and Mallory were competing hard against a very good team as well, but came up short and lost in a tough match. Melissa and I were left to battle it out to determine who would win the doubles point, and thanks to some great poaching by Mang and solid play on both of our parts we were able to clinch the doubles point for the team!

Taking the ten minute break in between doubles and singles, everyone was fired up to get out on the court again and take on the Buckeyes one on one. I was questioning whether I would be able to play because I was still feeling really sick, but decided to give it my best effort. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough and I ended up losing 6-4, 6-3. It was a disappointing loss, but my teammates really came through in the rest of the matches! Reka, always the solid player, dominated her opponent and gave us a 2-0 lead. Melissa finished up next with a convincing win at #5, closing out a close second set to give us a 3-0 lead. Clinching the match for the second time this season, Mallory Cecil played unbelievably against Kristen Flowers and won her match at the #1 spot!

The crowd was VERY supportive and it was so much fun to see everyone rallying behind us. I think the Duke Field Hockey team deserves a big shout-out for today- they came out in full force and had even made signs for each one of us with things like "Eureka" and "Don't Mess with Jess" written all over them! Crazy Towel Guy also came by after the basketball game- he has certainly proven to be one of our biggest supporters over the past two seasons and it's always great to see him in the stands!

Until next time...

Coach's Corner - Josh Goffi

This is a little out of the norm for me to be writing our team blog but I think there is good reason. We lost today to the Florida State Seminoles (FSU) 5-0. That's right Duke fans, 5-0. Shocking. Well that's what the papers say at least.  All you need to know is that the boys were points away from winning that match 4-1. We just came up short in the clutch this time and that's okay. It is going to come, I can promise you that. So here is the thing, I am not going to write to you about what happened today but rather what didn't happen.

Penn State only has 4 indoor courts. So, after we lost a doubles point where we had match points to win, singles matches 1-4 went on and 5 and 6 had to wait for an open court. Unfortunately, we were not able to complete the matches at 5 and 6 because the FSU coaches didn't want their players to possibly get injured so they decided to pull them when the match was clinched. Therefore, they defaulted those spots giving the match the final score of 5-2 with Torsten and Holland picking up the retirement victories. In my opinion, as a coach, that is unacceptable and all four players involved lost an opportunity to become better as a player but more importantly to grow as a person.  

Tennis is the greatest sport in the world for one reason, it is the ultimate teacher. The character that one builds from this game is priceless. The opportunities to grow are endless but they are all disguised as daunting challenges. As players, we have to confront them and embrace them and that is not easy to do at all. Today, Torsten and Holland missed out on an opportunity to challenge their self pride and professionalism. When no one was watching and the outcome didn't really matter, they still needed to perform their jobs with the highest level of professionalism yet that opportunity was stolen from them. 

Try to follow me here because this is where I go off on my rant about a few of the life lessons you can learn through tennis... Humility is an ongoing lesson because tennis is like a roller coaster, the highs and lows are never ending throughout a set, match, career, etc. When you feel on top of the world, there is an inevitable low lurking around the corner and vice versa. If you undertand this then the highs won't be so high and the lows won't be so low.  Another is courage. We encounter self doubt all of the time on the court. When you are uncertain about yourself and your abilities, you still have to push through and do the right thing. Perspective is another. You learn not to panic because nothing ever happens the way you planned, so don't panic…ADAPT! And my personal favorite, it teaches you how to dig deep. Most people don't know how deep they can dig mentally and/or physically and most might not see the relevance this has to life but to me it is extremely important. With this self-awareness, you can walk into any situation and feel like you can find a way to get through it somehow, no matter what. You never panic, you just adapt. I can go on and on with situations that mimic everyday life… 

If you really think about it, how many times have you felt these emotions or been in situations like I just described above? On the court? Off of the court? Personally, just in this past week I encountered all of them and most importantly, dealt with them. If you take the situations that tennis presents to you head on, it creates a confidence (not to be confused with arrogance) that can get you through life. Most tennis players are very successful in life after their tennis careers and I say most because not all fully take on the challenges that tennis presents. 

This sport is fantastic and we are all blessed because every level of playing presents challenges. I know you can relate to these situations on and off the court just like the pros, so dive in and embrace these opportunities. If you are just starting tennis, stick with it because it's the greatest.

Hope you were able to follow me... 

Thanks for reading,

Josh

Insert Creative Title Here

You haven't truly experienced Duke unless you walk around at 7 AM on a Saturday; it gives new meaning to the word 'deserted.' But our 10 o'clock match required an early warm-up, and our dear coach, Jamie Ashworth, wanted us to be "alert and ready to go," which in my case, means waking up a minimum of 3 hours before the start of a match. Sometimes, even that doesn't really work. As motivation (or BRIBERY) for waking up at this atrocious hour, we were treated to a breakfast buffet at the Washington Duke...I don't speak for the whole team here, but the combination of "breakfast" and "buffet" never bodes well to my dietary habits. After eating an assortment of approximately 2 danishes, a croissant, an omelet, a muffin, and an infinite number of french toasts, we were ready to get started.

Unfortunately, there was a slight flaw to our morning: Amanda, our favorite bubbly teammate, was conspicuously absent from our group. She had woken up this morning with some kind of a ridiculous stomach virus, and had to go to the training room to get an IV...it was pretty apparent that she would be in no shape to play today. This presented us with a pretty hefty quandary: with the absence of Amanda, we only had 5 healthy players to take the court. Hmmmmmmm. Solution? TARA IYER SAVES THE DAY!!!

That's right, Tara was the hero of the day, as she teamed up with Amanda's usual partner Melissa (a.k.a Isamel, but noone really calls her that) to win their doubles match 8-3, after literally not having hit a ball for AT LEAST a few months. It wasn't particularly spectacular, due to the obvious inhibition of movement on Tara's part, but they totally got the job done, and it gave our whole team a boost. Adding Melissa and Tara's win to the pure destruction that Ellah and I produced on court 3, we ended up winning the doubles point to start off the match. On court 2, Mal (OUR LITTLE BABY FRESHMAN!!!) and Jess were also dominating, and were up 6-3 before the doubles point was won. Oh, and this would probably be a good time to mention WHO exactly we were playing: the VCU Rams.

Next came singles....since I was technically playing tennis and not paying attention at the beginning, I didn't manage to keep track of everyone's score, except for Jess', since I am perpetually hypnotized by the barrage of volleys and overheads that always seem to be occurring on her court. She got down an early break, but then battled back to win the first set 6-4. Meanwhile, our amazing adorable freshman MALLORY had done a little something I would term BEASTLINESS and won her match 6-1, 6-0. I was the second one off the court (by literally 2 milliseconds) and won 6-0, 6-0, to the utter dismay of my opponent, who seemed particularly flustered by the incredible shanks I managed to produce on the run. With those two wins, we went up 3-0, and only needed one more win to clinch! At this point, it seemed that Ellah, Melissa, and Jess were determined to keep us in suspense and vie for that all-important clinching honor. Ellah happened to be the one to do it, keeping the foot stomps to a minimum, and won her match 6-0, 6-4. That second set was a little tighter, maybe due to the fact that her opponent's grunts got continually more annoying as the match progressed. With the match won, Melissa and Jess were the last two on court. Melissa had a temporary out-of-body experience when she was up 5-2, (you know what I'm talking about, we've ALL done it) but returned to her body just in time, to win the second set 7-6. Jess, or Robocop as Jay called her today, continued her onslaught of netness, hitting 20 million volleys and overheads in the last 6 games, and took the second set 6-1.

sooooo, to sum the day up:

Duke: 6 VCU: 1

Great success!

till next time............

-REKA