This is supposed to be a rivalry?
Every year, the Duke women's tennis team, which is currently riding a three-digit, 11-year conference winning streak, must listen to talk before playing Wake Forest that the Demon Deacons pose the biggest threat to ending the Blue Devils' reign of terror over the ACC.
Well, if this is the biggest threat, one has to feel sorry for the other teams in the conference.
Using refreshingly dominant doubles play, No. 3 Duke (14-2, 6-0) used the mental edge it knew it had to defeat the Demon Deacons, 7-2, in Winston-Salem yesterday afternoon.
"I think we have the mental edge over Wake," coach Jamie Ashworth said. "The beginnings of these matches are always close, but we seem to pull away. It becomes a matter of, can you play hard every point. When it comes to crunch time, our girls just say 'Nothing's going to beat us.' Wake wasn't doing that.
"They have a point where they stay with us and stay close. But do they have what it's going to take to win five individual matches? They begin to question themselves a little bit."
Karen Goldstein and Kathy Sell were the only two Blue Devils to lose individual matches, but each came back onto the court to help their respective doubles partners, Vanessa Webb and Megan Miller, earn easy victories.
"With singles, we know we can compete with anyone," Goldstein said. "But doubles is where we have been struggling. Now, people are having more fun with their doubles and they're looking forward to playing doubles. I was really happy with our doubles play. We played smart today."
The Blue Devils have now swept the doubles play in four consecutive team matches.
Sell said that Wake Forest, which typically gears up to play Duke, came out a little flat.
"I didn't once hear anybody yell 'Go Wake!'" Sell said. "They had a lot of fans, but I didn't feel that they were any threat. They played hard, but they didn't put any fight into it. There wasn't any doubt in my mind or my team's mind that we would win."
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