This weekend, the women's tennis team showed that it's not yet the best team in the country, but it might not be too far behind.
Duke (11-3) lost to No. 1 Florida 5-2 on Saturday, but came back Sunday to defeat 19th-ranked William & Mary, 7-2.
For the fourth-ranked Blue Devils, the match against Florida was an opportunity to avenge a 5-1 loss to the Gators during the National Team Indoors in the fall. Florida is a perfect 16-0 this spring and all six of its top players are ranked in the top 42 in the nation.
The singles matches started off in an uncharacteristic manner for Duke. Freshman Vanessa Webb, the teams No. 1 seed, dropped her first match of the season, falling to Jill Craybas. Craybas, who had lost 6-2, 6-0 to Webb in the fall, kept the third-ranked player in the country on the baseline the entire match, thus limiting Webb's serve-and-volley game. The result was an easy 6-2, 6-3 victory for Craybas.
"[Craybas] kept me from coming to the net," Webb said. "And my serve percentage was so low that I couldn't serve-and-volley. That really took me out of my element."
Unfortunately for the Blue Devils, many of Webb's teammates were also out of their element. Juniors Karen O'Sullivan and Luanne Spadea and freshman Kristin Sanderson dropped straight-set matches as well. But Duke was able to stay alive due to impressive performances by junior Diana Spadea and sophomore Laura Zifer. Spadea dominated Bonnie Bleecker, No. 39 in the country, 6-2, 6-2.
Zifer, meanwhile, lost the first set of her match to Lisa Pugliese convincingly. With the team already down 4-1 and needing one more win to continue the contest into doubles, Zifer swept the second set, 6-0, and won a 7-3 tiebreaker in the third set, to force Florida to play doubles.
"[Florida] got a jump on us and got the momentum early," Blue Devil head coach Jody Hyden said. "I thought we had a shot in doubles."
The Gators quickly ended Duke's hope in doubles when Dawn Buth and Stephanie Nickitas toppled Webb and Diana Spadea, 6-4, 6-2. The other two matches were called as Florida had an insurmountable 5-2 lead.
"They seemed to be a little bit more confident in making shots than we did," Hyden said. "We missed a lot of balls at certain spots in doubles.
"I think we're as good as any team in the country but we didn't play like it today. We realize that we didn't play as well as we could have. I think we'll bounce back fine [against William & Mary] and play better than we did today."
Indeed, Duke came out against the Tribe with the quality of play that has led to its 11 wins this year. Webb jumped on Lauren Nikolaus from the start in a 6-3, 6-2 win.
"[Saturday] I had a really off day," Webb said. "Today I think I was much more focused and my serve-and-volley was much better."
Joining Webb with straight set victories were O'Sullivan, Luanne Spadea and junior Wendy Fix. The Blue Devils' only two singles losses were by Sanderson and Diana Spadea. Sanderson rallied from a 1-4 deficit to win her first set, 7-6, before losing the last two, while Spadea lost a first set tiebreaker that included a rally with over 40 hits at 6-6.
Perhaps more impressive than Duke's singles wins was its dominance in doubles. The team won all three contests, two in straight sets.
"We were really confident out here today in all of our singles matches," Hyden said. "In doubles we played one of the better doubles matches we've played overall. Playing a match yesterday helped our confidence a lot even though we lost."
The Blue Devils ability to control William & Mary in the wake of their Florida loss demonstrated the improvement Duke has continued to make as the season goes on.
They might not have beaten the top team in country on Saturday, but they feel that they have the potential to later in the season. The Blue Devils will face another big challenge on Tuesday when No. 6 Wake Forest comes to town.
"I think we've learned some things," Hyden said. "I think we've seen how we need to prepare. We improved our doubles today from yesterday.
"We know we can play with anyone in the country. You have to take some losses at this stage and learn from it to get better. I think we're ready to have some more breakthroughs. I see ourselves as much more confident now."
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.