Perfection is the only way to describe this weekend for the Blue Devils.
Rain in the forecast shifted this weekend’s Duke matches from down Tobacco Road to the Blue Devils' home courts for the annual Kitty Harrison Invitational. At Sheffield Indoor Tennis Center, three Duke players played a total of 12 matches, and all of them went in favor of the host team.
To open up play Friday, senior Kaitlyn McCarthy and junior Meible Chi took the court together for an 8-5 doubles win against William & Mary before Chi teamed up with sophomore Kelly Chen to earn the 8-2 victory against East Carolina.
After Chi’s pair of doubles wins, she was back on the court for singles against Penn State. The No. 31 junior defeated Penn State’s Olivia Rohrbacher 6-1, 6-2. No. 12 Chen needed one more game to defeat her Big Ten opponent while No. 84 McCarthy won 6-4, 6-2.
Saturday’s morning paralleled the day before as Chi and Chen started the day off with a quick 8-0 result against an Elon duo before three singles matches against James Madison followed. Once again, the trio won their matches in straight sets, with McCarthy taking a 6-3, 6-1 win against Jona Roka.
Day three for head coach Jamie Ashworth saw three singles matches, but also saw the closest a Blue Devil came to a defeat against Maryland.
Chi defeated Maryland’s Amber Policare 6-3, 6-0 to close out her weekend. On the season, she holds a team-high 9-1 singles record.
The second Duke player off the court Sunday was Chen, who knocked off Terrapin Millie Stretton 6-3, 6-1. The sophomore only gave up 15 games over the course of her three singles victories. Chen enters her final fall tournament with a 5-1 singles record.
McCarthy took the opening set against Zoe Kulkarni 6-4 to put her one set away from her third straight-set victory of the weekend. But the Maryland sophomore flipped the script and evened the match at one set apiece with a 6-4 win.
In the deciding third-set super tiebreaker, McCarthy used her experience to inch past Kulkarni for her seventh victory of the fall 10-7 in the decider.
Four Blue Devils will be making the trip to Surprise, Ariz., next weekend for the ITA Fall National Championship Nov. 7-11. In the singles draw, Chen earned her place by advancing to the quarterfinals of the ITA All-American Championship last month.
Chi only advanced to the round of 16 of that tournament, but the junior earned her place in the draw with an at-large spot based on her preseason ranking as well as her unpublished national ranking and her Universal Tennis Rating.
McCarthy was awarded a doubles draw entry along with classmate Ellyse Hamlin, who will make her fall debut at the event. The top-ranked duo advanced to the NCAA tournament doubles semifinals last spring.
Ashworth will also send players to the Arizona State Fall Invitational Nov. 9-11 in Tempe, Ariz.
A notable absence from both this weekend’s event as well as next weekend’s Fall National Championships is freshman Maria Mateas. In her debut college event, she advanced to the finals of the All-American Championship and earned a spot in final top-tier college event of the fall.
Instead, Mateas will be playing in Las Vegas at the Red Rock Pro Open $80,000 professional tournament. The main draw begins Nov. 6 for the WTA No. 303 Mateas.
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