Domination. For the women's tennis team, the message it wanted to convey through this weekend's two ACC matches was domination.
And for a team that dropped its last ACC match in 1988, the Blue Devils showed this weekend that they intend to dominate the ACC once again this year.
Duke (12-4, 3-0 ACC) defeated Clemson Friday afternoon 6-3 before hitting the courts the next day in a 9-0 whitewashing of Georgia Tech (10-4, 1-2).
"It's important that we can set the tone in the conference," Duke coach Jamie Ashworth said. "We've been the team to beat for the last 12 years. If we can set the tone early in our conference season, they'll know that while we're a younger team, we're still dominating conference matches."
Dominate they did. Only Kathy Sell, ranked 13th nationally, had trouble Friday, dropping her match at No. 1 to the Tigers' fifteenth-ranked Carmina Girardo in a three-set nailbiter 4-6, 6-4, 7-5.
While the rest of the team swamped the remaining five singles matches, it dropped two doubles matches. At No. 1, Erica Biro and Brooke Siebel fell 9-7 as did Hillary Adams and Sell, 8-6. Ioana Plesu and Prim Siripipat prevailed, however, at No. 3 doubles 8-1.
"It's hard to come out after you win singles and have the same intensity in doubles," Ashworth said. "We have to keep working on that. You don't get a lot of chances when doubles mean something, so when it does, you can't all of a sudden turn it on like a switch."
The Blue Devils took note of Friday's lesson for the next day's match against Georgia Tech.
Going into doubles with a match-clinching 6-0 lead, Duke found the same intensity to sting the Yellow Jackets again. Siebel joined Biro again at No. 1, but this time easily took their match 8-2. The results were similar all the way down the courts as the Blue Devils finished their shutout against Georgia Tech.
Meanwhile, at singles, only Adams' match was competitive enough to enter a third set. After dropping a low-intensity first set 3-6, she rebounded to a 6-4 win in the next set.
The third set, which Adams won 6-4, was perhaps more memorable for a contested umpire call than for the actual match. The call centered around whether or not a ball went out of bounds. The umpire called a code violation against a frustrated Adams, who was cited for inappropriate language. The match's referee subsequently overruled the violation.
"What she said wasn't codeable. You can't give a violation for what she said," Ashworth said. "She should just keep her mouth shut."
Despite what frustrations may come for his team, however, Ashworth was optimistic of his team's growth and performance.
"Every time we play, we're playing better with more confidence," he said.
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