Opening what was supposed to be a monster of a season, the fourth-ranked women's tennis team began its 2004 schedule this weekend with a growl and a whispering loss. A trip to Nashville brought Duke merely a 1-1 record, with a 6-1 win over No. 32 Baylor overshadowed by a blowout 7-0 loss the next day to the home team, No. 12 Vanderbilt.
The Blue Devils grabbed the doubles point early against the Bears, and Duke star Amanda Johnson held up her No. 5 national ranking with a 6-2, 6-2 victory over Baylor's Carolin Walter. With the win, Johnson became the 15th Blue Devil to record 100 career victories.
Tory Zawacki was the only Duke singles player to fall for the rest of the match, and the Blue Devils took the contest in grand fashion.
But Sunday was a different story, with the Commodores jumping out with the early doubles win after Johnson and Zawacki battled hard. Vanderbilt wouldn't lose a set in singles play until it had clinched the home win.
Vanderbilt's No. 39 Audra Falk was unrelenting against Johnson, shutting out the Duke senior in the first set and putting the Commodores up 2-0 with a convincing win. Julia Smith couldn't help the Blue Devils in the next singles match, falling to freshman Amanda Fish after a second-set tiebreaker.
Jennifer Zika was Duke's last chance to pull out a point, but, even after a comeback, she gave Vanderbilt the upset win. Aleke Tsoubanos notched the first set quickly, 6-1, ad then ran out to a 5-2 lead in set two. But the 64th-ranked Zika rallied to even things up at 5-5, only to drop the momentum and the last two games and hand Zika the clincher.
North Carolina snowstorms left the Blue Devils in Tennessee for an extra day, and a cancelled flight only left an excited preseason top five team to linger on an opening weekend blow.
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