After two impressive wins over nationally ranked competition, the fifth-ranked women's tennis team lost to top-ranked Florida in the semifinals of the National Team Indoors in Madison, Wis.
"I thought we did pretty well," head coach Jody Hyden said. "It was a good tournament for us. With the bad weather, we haven't prepared as much as some of the other teams. But the team showed a lot of improvement and promise."
The highlight of the weekend for the Blue Devils was their 5-3 win in the quarterfinals over fourth-ranked and two-time defending champion Georgia. The Blue Devils had beaten the Bulldogs a week earlier in Athens, Ga., by a 5-4 margin. The win in Madison proved that the win in Athens was not the upset it appeared to be.
"When you beat somebody ranked higher than you the first time, people think you are a fluke," Hyden said. "We talked about that a lot and wanted to prove that that's not true. I think that really proves that we're a talented team. We beat them better than last time, so that shows that we're improving."
All of the matches against Georgia started out very close. The Blue Devils fell behind 2-1 in the team results, with losses at second and third singles.
Junior Wendy Fix, playing at fourth singles, was down 6-3, 5-2 at this point. She overcame this deficit to defeat Jane Ried 3-6, 7-6 (7-5), 6-4. Following this win, the Blue Devils went on to win all of the remaining singles matches and take the overall team match.
"Wendy Fix had a really dramatic match against Georgia," Hyden said. "It was a big match for her to win. It gave us a lot of momentum for the rest of the singles matches and the doubles."
After defeating Georgia, the Blue Devils took on No. 1 Florida in the semifinals on Saturday. Freshman Vanessa Webb, ranked 15th in the nation, scored the lone win for the Blue Devils at No. 1 singles, defeating third-ranked Jill Craybass 6-4, 6-0.
Three other Duke players were able to extend their matches to three sets, but it was not enough as the Blue Devils lost 5-1.
Although positive about its effort against the No. 1 team in the nation, Duke saw the Florida match as a good learning experience that will help it later on.
"We saw a lot of areas we need to work on," Fix said. "I think one of our weaknesses against Florida was conditioning. That comes as a result of not having a lot of court time because of the weather."
The individual star of the weekend for the Blue Devils was Webb. In addition to defeating third-ranked Craybass from Florida, Webb beat 17th-ranked Anne Chauzu of Georgia 6-1, 6-1. She also took out 12th-ranked Melissa Zimpfer of Wisconsin, 6-3, 6-2 in the Blue Devils' 6-1 victory over the host Badgers.
"Vanessa Webb didn't lose a match all weekend," Hyden said. "She played exceptionally well, knocking off some of the top players in the country."
The Blue Devils now have a brief break in their schedule before returning to the courts on March 5 against conference rival North Carolina State.
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