The Virginia Cavaliers posed a potential threat to the women's tennis team this weekend. Boasting a top-25 team and the nation's 19th-ranked player in Jen Callen, Virginia could not be taken lightly.
Still, the No. 6 Blue Devils (3-0) maintained their composure and eventually carved out a comfortable 7-2 margin of victory in Charlottesville.
Duke continued to play singles without its top player, senior Christine Neuman. Neuman has been hampered by splints in her non-playing wrist since the start of the spring season.
However, she did appear in the doubles lineup with freshman Karen O'Sullivan. They defeated Taylor Holden and Leigh Buchart in straight sets, 6-2, 6-4.
Head coach Geoff Macdonald expressed satisfaction after the match.
"If you play a team which is one of the top 20 in the nation, which has five seniors starting, and you play them in Charlottesville and your top player is out of the singles lineup, and you beat 'em, you're very pleased," Macdonald said.
What pleased Macdonald in particular was the play of three freshmen who took the courts on Saturday -- O'Sullivan, Wendy Fix and Kim Schiff. The trio went undefeated against Virginia's senior players and combined for five of Duke's seven winning matches.
O'Sullivan came back after losing her first set in the singles to beat Alison Cohen, 6-7 (7-3), 7-5, 6-0. Fix also got out of a similar predicament with Buchart, before pulling away 3-6, 6-2, 6-4. Schiff notched a 6-4, 6-1 victory over Karen Kerr.
"They were all a little nervous at first, and had a lot pressure on them in a certain way. It was only their third dual match and first conference experience," Macdonald said. "Two of them had to come back from one set down and that showed good fighting spirit."
O'Sullivan said she was "very pleased" with both her performance and the efforts of the team.
"Being our first conference match, we didn't know what to expect," she said. "But I thought the team did very well overall. We proved how tough we were both physically and mentally."
Duke's only losses came when reserve Hillary McKinney, filling in for Neuman, lost to Callen after a second set battle, 6-0, 6-4, and when juniors Wendy Lyons and Monica Mraz fell to Ly-Lan Schofield and Cohen, 5-7, 6-2, 2-6.
Macdonald explained that Lyons and Mraz might have been affected by fatigue. Their doubles match ended at 10:45 in the evening.
Macdonald was not surprised by anything he saw last Saturday.
"Nothing new jumped at me," he said. "But we were going 40-0 up and getting careless on the assumption that we would win. We were losing a few loose points that way."
Neuman was not the only Blue Devil bothered by an injury. Lyons played with a sore right foot as result of tendinitis. Despite playing in pain, Lyons gave up just three games in downing Holden 6-1, 6-2.
"I haven't played a whole lot," she said. "So considering the amount of time that I have been playing, I'm pretty satisfied. My play is getting better, and the rest I got after the [ITA National] Indoors helped a lot too."
"The teams are very close this year," O'Sullivan said. "It's going to be a tough season. We need to work hard and be prepared in every way."
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