After taking the first three points of the match Sunday, the women’s tennis team only needed one more. That was all the Blue Devils would get.
Eighth-ranked Duke (1-0) eked out a 4-3 victory over No. 18 Tennessee (0-2) at Sheffield Indoor Tennis Center in its first match of the indoor season.
Any of the four Blue Devils who were still on court could have provided the final point, but with three players down a set and trailing in the second, the team’s fate lay on the racquet of Katie Blaszak.
Blaszak took the first set of her match 7-6 and jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the second but allowed Tennessee’s Bryce Marable to work her way back into the match.
“I lost my concentration for a little while,” Blaszak said.
Marable capitalized on Blaszak’s lack of focus with her big serve, coming to within a game of Blaszak at 5-4. With the Duke senior serving for the match, Marable forced the game to deuce before Blaszak won the next point and then hammered a serve out wide on match point. Marable barely got to the serve, and Blaszak crushed the short return cross-court for a backhand winner and the team victory.
For most of her match, Blaszak was unaware that the result of her game would determine the overall outcome. When she saw her teammates’ scores during the changeover at 5-4, she realized she needed to start going for her shots to get the win.
“Up 5-4 and a break isn’t the time to back off,” she said.
The Blue Devils won the first point of the afternoon by beating the Volunteers in two of the three doubles matches. The No. 1 doubles team of Blaszak and Jackie Carleton defeated Sabita Maharaj and Ashley Robards, 8-2, while the No. 3 pairing of Tory Zawacki and Saras Arasu dropped their match to Blakeley Griffith and Marable, 3-8.
That left Jennifer Zika and Kristin Cargill on the court with a 5-4 advantage against Tennessee’s Melissa Schaub and Ghizela Schutte. Cargill’s net coverage forced the Volunteers to leave a return hanging, and Cargill hit an overhead down the middle to put the Duke team up a break. Three games later, Zika hit a shot down the line on match point that neither Tennessee player could get to, giving Duke an 8-5 win.
When the teams shifted to singles play, Duke’s No. 6 player Clelia Deltour was the first off the court with a convincing 6-2, 6-2 victory over Schutte.
Cargill won her first set 6-3, but stumbled at the beginning of the second as she dropped the opening two games before building a 4-2 lead. Schaub leveled the score at 5-5, but Cargill’s ability to win big points proved to be too much. Serving for the match, Cargill sliced an ace out wide that ended Schaub’s run.
“A lot of [big points] fell on my service games, and I know that I can win those,” Cargill said.
After those two victories, the match got tense for the Blue Devils. Both No. 3 Zika and No. 4 Zawacki dropped the opening sets of their matches.
Amidst cries of “Oh my God,” Blue Devil No. 1 Jackie Carleton also lost the first set of her match 6-3 as she struggled with unforced errors.
“I haven’t missed this many shots in my entire life,” she screamed to herself.
Her woes continued in the second set as Tennessee’s Maharaj kept the ball in play, letting Carleton continue to make errors.
“I basically beat myself today,” she said.
Zika then lost the second set of her match 6-3, bringing Tennessee to within a point of the Blue Devils.
Blaszak finally clinched the match a few minutes later, and Zawacki lost her second set after the team result had already been determined.
Head coach Jamie Ashworth was pleased with the result, considering Sunday’s match was the team’s first since early November.
“Anytime you beat a team in the top 20 is good,” he said. “Hopefully, we can use this match and the Indiana match next week to prepare us for the National Team Indoors.”
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