The women's tennis team is rapidly learning just what life without Vanessa Webb is really like.
No Blue Devil managed to escape the second round of the Riviera ITA All-American Tennis Championships at Pacific Palisades, Calif., this weekend, a tournament which Webb won three years ago without losing a set the entire tournament.
Because, especially at the second leg of the collegiate grand slam, a Webb-less life isn't easy.
But with both of the weekend's main draw losses coming to NCAA champions, it's not too disappointing yet, either.
Juniors Kathy Sell and Megan Miller-who a season ago tied Webb for the team lead in victories with 37-both picked up a three-set opening-round victory before making a second round exit in the weekend tournament.
"It was a... new feeling and knowing that I was one of the older girls on the team," Sell said. "In the past it was always Vanessa Webb, NCAA Champion... and Duke. Now it's us."
But every second-round loss in a grand slam has a silver lining in the automatic inclusion into the NCAA singles tournament at year's end, which automatically allots spots to the final 16 in the collegiate grand slams.
And Sell, who qualified into the tournament's main draw, might have made it further, but, as Miller would soon discover, fate was not on the Blue Devils' side when it came to the draw.
After beating UCLA's Sara Walker in the opening round-a player Sell had twice lost to in the past-Sell ran into San Diego's Zuzana Lesenarova, the defending champion of both the Riviera and the NCAA titles.
"I knew I was playing a really good player," Sell said of the eventual tournament champion and the record five-time collegiate grand slam title holder. "So knew I had to hit great shots. But I missed more than I should have against a player like her."
While Sell was playing the NCAA singles champion, Miller was busy with two-time NCAA doubles champion, Amy Jensen of California. And like Sell, the second-round brought the tournament's end for the Palm City, Fla., resident.
"It was tough for Megan, being seeded... to have to play such a good player," Sell said. "It's the luck of the draw."
A host of other Blue Devils competed in the tournament, which sprawled over more than week from prequalifying through tournament's end. Senior Brooke Siebel, who has been the surprise of the season, reeled off a seven-match win streak before falling in the qualifying rounds. Freshman Prim Siripipat also pushed her way through the prequalifying rounds into the qualifiers before losing to Karin Palme of Arizona State.
And even though none of the Blue Devils saw the weekend's end, Sell isn't too worried about chinks developing in the 12-time ACC champion armor.
"It's a little weird not to have Karen [Goldstein] and Vanessa around at the end," she said. "But it just makes us want to step up even more. Duke is a team that should expect its top player to be no. 5. But not being there yet doesn't make us less of a team. People don't fear us less."
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