After breezing through its first four matches of the season, Duke is set to face its biggest challenge of the year so far.
The Blue Devils will begin play Friday at the ITA National Team Indoors in Charlottesville, Va., the largest team tournament of the season, pitting 16 of the top 17 teams in the nation against each other. Duke heads into the tournament as the No. 7 seed after a strong start to the season, losing just one match through its first four contests—a combined record of 21-1. Despite their strong play early on, the Blue Devils know that this tournament poses a much tougher challenge than their early season schedule has.
“This is the toughest competition we’ve faced,” head coach Jamie Ashworth said. “To this point we haven’t really been challenged. We’ve been more talented than the teams we’ve played, but we’ve got to use the confidence we’ve gotten in the matches we’ve played and carry it over.”
Duke’s first round matchup against Michigan will be no easy task, as it comes into the tournament as the 11-ranked team in the nation, just one spot below the Blue Devils, who are ranked No. 10.
The Wolverines are a familiar foe, as they took down Duke last year 4-3, so the Blue Devils know that they must take the Wolverines seriously. Additionally, Michigan has the advantage of being more accustomed to playing indoor tennis matches, as most of its matches throughout the season are played indoors.
“I expect them to come out and just swing, and that’s just what indoor teams do,” Ashworth said. “They’re going to hit some winners and some aces and we just have to be able to understand going into the match that is what they’re going to do, and fight through those ebbs and flows of the match.”
Since Duke is going up against a seasoned team in indoor play, it made some slight adjustments in practice this week to better prepare itself.
“We tried to do a little more aggressive type of stuff,” Ashworth said. “Some serve and volleying, some quicker points, some shorter points, that kind of stuff, just because we’re going to see a bigger ball than we’ve seen. I told them on Sunday after we played Furman that now that first part of our season is over and now it’s time to play big boy tennis.”
Should the Blue Devils defeat Michigan, they would likely take on North Carolina in the next round. The match could have added importance, as the Tar Heels upset Duke in the semifinals of last year’s tournament.
Despite such a challenging potential second-round match, the Blue Devils are simply focused on taking care of Michigan first.
“A tournament like this you have to worry about the first match so much,” Ashworth said. “I bet if you asked out team who we’d play if we won our first match, none of them would even know…. It’s one match at a time and you survive and advance like any other kind of tournament and that’s what we’re trying to do.”
Even with some tough matchups ahead of it early on, Duke still believes that it has a shot to take down any team they face in the tournament. If it can play to its full potential, that goal can certainly be reached.
“If we can go on the court and play with passion, play with energy and play disciplined, we will take our chances against anybody,” Ashworth said.
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