In its first year in the ACC, Virginia Tech has already made an impact on the conference. After some success in football and basketball, however, the Hokies (3-4, 0-3 in the ACC) ran into a wall Thursday on the tennis court. The Duke women’s tennis team (7-2, 1-0) swept Virginia Tech 7-0 in Blacksburg, Va., in their ACC opener.
Coming off a loss to then-No. 4 Northwestern and a win over then-No. 20 Notre Dame last weekend, Duke faced the ACC newcomer as the fifth-ranked team in the country. Led by No. 42 Katie Blaszak, the Blue Devils dropped only one doubles court before winning out.
In doubles competition, senior Saras Arasu and sophomore Kristin Cargill won handily on the second court, 8-3, and sophomore Parker Goyer and freshman Clelia Deltour took the third court, 8-3. The first-court pair of junior Jackie Carleton and sophomore Tory Zawacki dropped a close match, 9-7. Virginia Tech’s top duo of Felice Lam and Jennifer Larson, the 43rd-ranked doubles team in the country, sat out the match.
“After this weekend, we changed teams to rest people,” said head coach Jamie Ashworth, whose squad has shifted throughout the season. “We’re trying to get Jackie back out on the court playing too.”
Carleton, who had been out with severe tendonitis in her right ankle, sat out for the singles competition, but Duke had no problem cruising to victory. The Blue Devils secured the victory with three straight singles wins at the 2, 4 and 5 spots.
Deltour rallied to win 6-2, 6-0 on the second court to put Duke up 2-0, improving her personal record to 19-6 for the season.
“Clelia played well,” Ashworth said. “She struggled last weekend but did a good job recovering today.”
Zawacki and Cargill netted the next two points to finish off the Hokies. Cargill, playing in the fourth spot, won 6-4, 6-1 to secure the match victory after Zawacki defeated Virginia Tech’s Kate Harrington 6-4, 6-1 at the fifth spot.
Zawacki had a little extra motivation in her match as her older sister, Terry Ann Zawacki-Woods, is the Hokies’ head coach.
“She was a little nervous to start,” Ashworth said. “She was down 4-2 in first set but came back to win. It’s never an easy thing to compete against family, but it has happened to the team before, so it wasn’t new to me.”
To round out the singles field, junior Lauren Archer won in her first spring match, 6-1, 6-0. Blaszak and Arasu similarly defeated their opponents 6- 4, 6-1 at the first and third slots, respectively.
The team’s win was Ashworth’s 200th career victory at Duke. In nine years with the Blue Devils, Ashworth holds a 200-32 record.
º“It is really nice to win 200,” Ashworth said. “It says a lot about our players we have had here over my nine years.”
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