A team knows it is pretty good when it can divide itself, send the pieces to two different sides of the country and still win. And that is pretty much what the women's tennis team did this weekend.
Head coach Jody Hyden took his freshmen contingent of Karin Miller, Libble Miller and Brooke Siebel, along with junior Ellen McCance, to Florida for the Gator Fall Classic. Assistant coach Jamie Ashworth and the rest of the team, meanwhile, traveled west to California for the Riviera All-American.
"I think that the team as a whole played very well," Hyden said. "This was only the fourth event of the year, and we are getting better every tournament. We had more people playing on Saturday in California than anyone else. It means that we are doing something right."
Both events were individual tournaments, independent of team affiliation. In California, all players had to survive prequalifying and qualifying rounds before entering the main tournament that began on Friday.
Sophomore Vanessa Webb was exempted out of the qualifying round, as all of last year's All-Americans received an automatic invitation to the big dance. Webb was the only Blue Devil who qualified for the main singles draw.
The serve and volley specialist from Toronto did not disappoint, as Webb did not lose a single set in the entire tournament. She advanced to the finals with victories over SMU's Patricia Zardar, Stanford's Sandra De Silva, Wisconsin's Melissa Zimfer and Arizona's Vicky Maes Webb, and then won the open singles title by thrashing Agnes Muzamel from the University of Mississippi 6-2, 6-1.
"[Webb] is a great player," Hyden said. "I think that her work ethic is the best in the nation. It is the best that I have worked with. She continues to work on every aspect of her game."
In the doubles draw of the Riviera, Duke fielded three teams while no other school fielded as many as two teams. The combo of seniors Wendy Fix and Kristin Sanderson advanced the farthest of any Duke teams, moving to the semifinals before falling to Christina Moros and Farley Taylor of Texas 2-6, 6-3, 1-6.
Three-thousand miles away in Florida, No. 2 seed Karin Miller showed why she might be the best freshmen in the country when she advanced to the Flight A championship match. Miller defeated Auburn's Kate Brian, Florida's Traci Green, Lorraine Bittles from Maryland and another Florida product in Divya Merchant en route to the finals on Sunday morning.
Miller, who is ranked 153rd in the world and has already won $70,000 in prize money on the tour while still remaining an amateur, faced top-seeded Dawn Buth from Florida in the finals. After winning the first set 6-4, Miller went ahead four match points before Buth came back to win the second set and eventually the match.
"Karin is more of a baseline player," Hyden said. "She likes to stay back more and use her ground strokes. On Saturday, she played very well. The finals was a great early test for her. She didn't play quite aggressive enough, but I learned a lot by watching her. She is going to be a very good player."
Hyden traveled with the Florida group so that he could watch and learn his younger player's styles. Still, he and Ashworth somehow managed to stay in contact, despite a three-hour time difference and the daylight savings change. And Hyden wasn't discouraged with what else he saw in Florida. McCance reached the third round of the Flight B singles draw. In the doubles draw the teams of K. Miller/Siebel and L. Miller/McCance both reached the second round of the doubles draw.
"In doubles, we need to work on our returns," Hyden said. "We need to take over the net and be more aggressive. We have a lot of good players who are going to get better with time."
For a team that reached the Final Four last year and lost no one to graduation, the Blue Devils are using the fall season to work out the kinks in an already-polished machine.
"I think that we are pretty close to schedule with people's games," Hyden said. "We need to spend some time on specifics. We will make the most improvement once we start isolating on individual's games."
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