Duke proved little more than a bump in the road for an unstoppable Stanford squad that steamrolled the Blue Devils, 4-0, in the quarterfinals of the NCAA Championships.
The lopsided victory was nothing new for a top-ranked Cardinal juggernaut that dominated the entire tournament, the last four rounds of which were held at the Taube Tennis Center on Stanford's campus in Palo Alto, Calif. After defeating 10th-ranked and eighth-seeded Duke (20-8), Stanford breezed past Florida and Miami to capture its third consecutive NCAA team title.
In addition to dominating the Championships, in which the Cardinal dropped just one game in the entire tournament, Stanford (30-0) has been untouchable in its supremacy over women's tennis for the past few years. The Cardinal has won an NCAA record 86-consecutive matches and has appeared in the title match in 20 of the past 25 NCAA Championships.
"If we had to lose to anyone I'm glad it was Stanford," head coach Jamie Ashworth said. "Every time Stanford walks onto the court they think they're going to win."
Despite the challenge posed by the matchup with the perennial powerhouse, Ashworth had expected his team to come out strong against the Cardinal after a solid 4-1 victory over ACC-rival North Carolina (24-6) in the round of 16. The coach said he believed his team's win over the Tar Heels-coupled with a dominating 4-0 performance over Virginia in the round of 32-stand as the two best back-to-back matches his team played the entire year.
"We tried to tell our team the morning before the match, 'You guys have been playing really well, you don't have to do anything special,'" Ashworth said. "But I think we did press a little bit."
After rain suspended the match more than three-and-a-half hours, the Blue Devils struggled from the start against the superior Stanford doubles pairs. The top-ranked tandem of Alice Barnes and Anne Yelsey defeated No. 31 Daniela Bercek and Jennifer Zika, 8-3. The Cardinal captured the doubles point soon after, when Tara Iyer and Jessi Robinson fell, 8-5, to Lejla Hodzic and Jessica Nguyen.
With a singles lineup that featured six players ranked 52nd or better in the nation, including four in the top 11, Stanford made quick work of the overmatched Blue Devils. Robinson, Iyer and Melissa Mang all lost in straight sets to give the Cardinal its fourth of five shutouts in the tournament.
No. 31 Bercek was the sole Blue Devil to win a set and led No. 8 Amber Liu 6-1, 3-4 when play was suspended. Among the other matches that did not finish, Clelia Deltour trailed Whitney Deason 6-1, 4-3 and No. 32 Jackie Carleton trailed 6-2, 5-2 to No. 5 Alice Barnes. Carleton was one game away from her first loss in 11 matches.
"We just got beat," Ashworth said. "Stanford knew that because of some of the matchups we had some chances to win and that really motivated them. They never let up."
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