SPARTANBURG, S.C.--Ho-hum. Another year, just another Atlantic Coast Conference championship for the women's tennis team.
Yeah, right.
On Sunday, the eighth-ranked Blue Devils did defeat No. 10 Wake Forest 5-4 to win their eighth-straight conference title. Duke rolled past Maryland, 6-0 on Friday and beat N.C. State, 5-0 on Saturday to reach the finals. The Blue Devils improved to 21-5, while Wake Forest, which had lost to Duke earlier in the year by the same score--fell to 21-4 in a match moved indoors because of rainy weather.
But it was anything but routine--it was the complete opposite, as a matter of fact.
"It's got to be the best ACC final ever in tennis," Duke head coach Jody Hyden said.
"That was the most incredible thing I've ever seen," said ACC tournament staffer Emily Watkins.
It was as crazy, dramatic and intense as a college tennis match can be. And after nearly six hours of tennis, the Blue Devils seemed to be dead. The overall match score was tied at 4-4, and Wake's No. 1 doubles team of Maggie Harris and Dana Evans held an overwhelming 5-1 lead in the third set of their match with Duke's Monica Mraz and Wendy Lyons. With one more game for the red-hot Wake tandem, Duke's seven-year stretch of ACC dominance would be over. There would be no hardware to take home--only memories of an effort that had fallen just short.
But something strange and remarkable happened. The Duke seniors simply would not die--despite the fact that no one really gave them a chance.
They began to make a comeback that will give the Demon Deacons nightmares for years to come. Lyons held serve, and after the Deacons were two points from the match in the next game, the Blue Devils broke to cut the deficit to 5-3. Next, Mraz battled through a tight game on her serve to inch within one.
"I wasn't feeling pressure at 5-1," Mraz said. "Maybe they were."
"I kept doing mathematical calculations at 5-1," said Hyden, who sat with the rest of his players on the adjacent court while assistant coach Jamie Ashworth--who had been at the No. 1 court all along--coached the Duke duo. "The whole time, I'm trying to figure out what we need to do [to come back]. I always felt that there was a way."
Still, Evans stepped up to the line with her powerful lefty serve and a chance to end it immediately. Earlier in the set, she had finished a game with two straight aces as Wake built up its lead. This time, however, the game went to deuce and Evans double-faulted. Lyons followed with a forehand return winner to even the match.
But Duke's work was not yet done. Lyons was broken in the next game, and Harris again served for the match again at 6-5. But Duke won the big points, and the match went to a tiebreaker.
"There was more than tennis going on out here," Mraz said. "It was a mental battle."
It was also Lyons' second third-set tiebreaker of the day. Earlier, she had been down 5-2 to Evans in the third set of their No. 2 singles match. At 5-3, she had saved three match points. Then she had come back to win the match to give Duke a crucial singles victory.
Now, she and teammate Mraz had a chance to do it again--only this time, it would clinch the championship. In the tiebreaker, Duke jumped out to a 5-2 lead. After a forehand winner by Evans, Lyons missed a chance to give Duke a 6-3 lead when she put a sitting forehand in the top of the net.
"That was my shot to go out in glory," Lyons said. "But it shanked."
Still, Duke won the next point--after a long, spectacular rally--to earn two match points.
Now it was the Deacon's chance to come back, and they won the next two points to even the decisive breaker at 6-6. Mraz followed with an overhead winner, then Evans nailed a sharp volley. It was 7-7.
Harris missed a relatively easy overhead--it was long by perhaps an inch--and the Blue Devils finally won it 9-7 when Evans' lunging stab at a Lyons volley came up short.
There was a massive Duke celebration on the court, while the Deacon players stood by and stared in disbelief. Of all the Duke titles in the last decade, this may have been the most unlikely and most cherished.
And the decisive match will never be forgotten by those involved.
"This would have to be my most memorable match," said Lyons, who was named tournament MVP for the second straight year. "We were in the ACC championship, playing for our school and our team, and our parents were here--this match meant everything to me."
The title went down to the final match because Wake came out on fire in the doubles. Duke had grabbed a 4-2 lead after the singles, as Mraz, Lyons, freshman Laura Zifer and sophomore Karen O'Sullivan won at the top four spots. Mraz obliterated Wake's Terry Ann Zawacki 6-0, 6-0 at No. 1, while the other three Blue Devils each won long three setters. Sophomore Wendy Fix and freshman Ellen McCance both lost in straight sets.
In the doubles, Wake's Lule Aydin and Patty Murren downed Zifer and Fix 7-5, 6-3 at No. 2, and McCance and O'Sullivan fell to Zawacki and Christina Caparis by the same score.
Midway through the second setDwhich Duke lost 7-6DLyons and Mraz knew that their match would decide it. The other players had become spectators.
"I think I was more nervous than the players," Zifer said. "I just had confidence in [Mraz and Lyons]. At 4-1 [in the third], we were thinking, `They'll come back.' When they got down 5-1, we had a little doubt."
After a couple of games, that doubt was erased.
"They played a really good match up until 5-1," Lyons said about her Wake opponents. "Then they started missing."
The play of Mraz and Lyons had something to do with that.
In particular, Lyons' pair of miraculous comebacks became the talk of the tournament.
"When we're playing, there's never a doubt in my mind that we'll win the match," said Lyons, who logged an astounding six hours of on-court action Sunday. "I'm forever the optimist."
After the match, all Lyons' teammates and coaches could do was marvel at what she had accomplished.
"That was just amazing," Zifer said. "That's all I can say about that. She's just so mentally tough."
"Even when she's not up or hitting the ball well, she has an inner fight and desire that carries her and the team," Ashworth said of Lyons. "Today, that really came out--she led the team through her fight and determination and heart."
Now the Duke duo of seniors will graduate with four ACC titles--while Hyden and Ashworth have one in their first year at the helm.
"We got through it with just so much heart--it was unbelievable," Hyden said. "We found a way to win, and it's a great feeling."
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