This year's women's tennis team may have a number of new faces, but nothing about its home dominance has changed. The No. 10 Blue Devils (5-1) defeated Old Dominion (3-4) by a score of 6-1 for their 20th consecutive home victory.
"Its a good win," sophomore Julia Smith said. "It's the first home game for all of the freshmen, of which we have a lot, so it's good to win this easily."
Duke swept the doubles matches as Smith teamed up with All-American Amanda Johnson to defeat the Lady Monarchs' Nataly Cahana and Kerstin Endlich in first doubles, 9-7. The other Blue Devil pairs of Kristin Cargill and Saras Arasu at the No. 3 position and Tory Zawacki and Jennifer Zika at No. 2 each won their matches 8-5 and 8-1, respectively.
In singles Duke performed particularly well, earning quick 6-1, 6-0 victories from Zika, Smith and Cargill.
"Even though we won the doubles point, it's good to win fast singles so the other players don't have as much pressure. I think that's important," Zika said.
Arasu won her match with Old Dominion's Coralie Herrmann by a score of 6-3, 6-0 and Zawacki had to fight back from a set behind to win her match 4-6, 6-4, 1-0.
Fifth-ranked Amanda Johnson struggled with her opponent, No. 33 Nataly Cahana, losing in straight sets. Her first set was marred by unforced errors, and she lost the match in a second-set tiebreaker by a score of 6-2, 7-6 (7-4).
"It's a tough matchup. She makes you hit winners and keeps the ball really low," Duke head coach Jamie Ashworth said of Cahana.
After last night's victory, Duke must now focus on Saturday's top-10 showdown with sixth-ranked Northwestern at 1:00 in Durham.
"Northwestern fights really well," Ashworth said. "We need to be very disciplined in what we do. We need to compete the same we did today, but play a little smarter."
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