The Blue Devils did not get off to the start they wanted for their first competition of the spring season Sunday.
On the road in Evanston, Ill., No. 10 Duke (0-1) only captured one point against No. 9 Northwestern (0-2), which swept the opening-day doubles matches and won five straight singles matches to win 6-1.
"We definitely didn't play as well as we are capable of playing," head coach Jamie Ashworth said. "We got off to too many slow starts.. There was never a time where we had any momentum to feed off of."
The Blue Devils tried to spark some momentum at the outset but came up short. In the highly contested match between the top doubles pairs for both teams, the Duke tandem of Daniela Bercek and Elizabeth Plotkin held a 6-5 lead. But the No. 1 doubles pair of Georgia Rose and Alexis Prousis for Northwestern charged back and carried the match 8-6.
The other two Wildcat doubles tandems won their matches, only needing one win to pick up the first team point of the day.
The results were hardly better for Duke in the singles matches later in the day. In the No. 4 singles match, Tory Zawacki was the only Blue Devil to pick up a win, with her match finishing after Northwestern had already rolled off five victories.
Duke will have two weeks to prepare for its next match at home against Indiana Feb. 10, and Ashworth said he expects his team to improve during that time.
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