Mission unaccomplished.
Duke women's tennis traveled to the William & Mary Invitational Sept. 15-17 to provide experience for its freshman and test new doubles pairings. Sickness and an injury, however, kept the Blue Devils from achieving their goals.
Freshman Jessi Robinson spent Friday in a Williamsburg, Va., emergency room being treated for a viral infection, but managed to come back and compete in one singles match. In addition, junior Tory Zawacki pulled her groin during her first match of the weekend. Zawacki and her doubles partner junior Kristin Cargill did not get to take the court together, while Robinson and fellow freshman Melissa Mang played only two doubles matches together.
"The injuries and sickness hampered everything we wanted to get out of this, and from a coach's standpoint it is really frustrating," head coach Jamie Ashworth said. "Hopefully we have our injuries and all that out of the way and we are healthy from now on."
Mang ended her first collegiate tournament with consecutive losses, but still compiled the best singles record of the four Duke participants at 2-2. The freshman easily dispatched Brown's Amanda Saiontz and Boston College's Dasha Cherkosov Friday to advance to the Flight B semifinals, before falling to fellow ACC competitor Inga Beerman of Virginia Tech Saturday. Sunday, Mang blew a one-set lead to Penn's Julia Koulbitskaya and lost the consolation match 2-6, 7-6 (5), 1-0 (5).
"She was up, and like a lot of the weekend, we were up, and we couldn't finish," Ashworth said. "It might be because it was her first tournament, and she was playing someone who's not a freshman. Maybe in junior tennis, the opponent rolls over there, but at this level the people are going to give 100 percent no matter what the score is."
Robinson lost her only singles match to Cherkasov 7-6 (6), 6-3, after returning from her illness. The doubles pair of Robinson and Mang split its two matches, but Ashworth said he is not set on playing the two freshmen together during the spring season.
"They showed that they can play doubles well, [but] we have to find the right combinations," Ashworth said.
Competing in the top flight, Cargill played one of the toughest draws in the tournament, going 1-2 for the weekend against three nationally ranked opponents. The junior, who is not among the three ranked Blue Devils, lost to North Carolina's 108th-ranked Jenna Long in straight sets, then defeated No. 96 Olga Borisova of Virginia Commonwealth in the consolation quarterfinals. Cargill fell in the consolation semifinals Sunday to William & Mary's Megan Muth, ranked 46th in the nation, 7-6 (4), 2-6, 6-2. Ashworth said even Duke's lower ranked players are expected to compete with the best in the nation.
"Our fours and fives need to beat the ones and twos of other teams at these tournaments-and if we are going to compete for a national championship, that's how it has to be," Ashworth said. "If we play someone in the spring, and our number four has already beaten their number one, that is a big mental edge and that's one of the things we're looking for in these tournaments."
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