After a disappointing first-round loss in the main draw of the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Riviera All-American Championships in Pacific Palisades, Calif., women?s tennis player Amanda Johnson picked up several quality wins in the backdraw before falling in the consolation finals on Sunday.
Johnson, ranked ninth in the nation, was upset last Thursday by 23rd-ranked Julie Smekodub. The Tulane sophomore, who subsequently reached the quarterfinals, snuck by Johnson 7-5, 7-5. The loss sent the Bettendorf, Iowa native to the consolation bracket with 13 other opening-round losers.
Johnson cruised through her next two matches, dispatching 25th-ranked Harvard senior Courtney Bergman, 6-1, 6-0 on Friday, and then taking out seventh-ranked Oregon senior Daria Panova 6-1, 6-1 in the semifinals on Saturday.
The win over Panova was Johnson?s biggest in her three-plus years at Duke.
"After her first-round loss, Amanda got back to how she's played for us for the last three years," Ashworth said. "Against [Panova], I told her to make sure that she hit a good first ball. She returned serve really well so she was controlling all of the points from the beginning. And if she can serve how she did all weekend, she'll have a great year."
Johnson continued her strong play in the consolation finals but fell to 34th-ranked Miami junior Megan Bradley 3-6, 6-4, 6-4.
Aside from the consolation singles, the only other draw with Blue Devils remaining in the week-long event was women's doubles.
After upsetting Stanford's top-seeded Erin Burdette and Lauren Barnikow on Thursday, 18th-ranked Johnson and freshman Tory Zawaki fell to Northwestern's tandem of Jessica Rush and Christelle Grier.
The Duke team held a 7-4 lead in the eight-game pro set but could not close out the match, falling 9-8 (4) to the sixth-ranked Wildcat duo.
Although Johnson and Zawaki played well together, Ashworth plans to continue his original strategy of mixing up doubles teams this fall in hopes of finding three solid combinations for the spring season.
"We'll probably play all new teams [at the ITA Regional Championships October 23-27] at Wake Forest," Ashworth said. "Amanda and Tory can be really good together, but we need to make sure that we have three very good teams, not just one great team."
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