No. 18 Duke women’s tennis dominates Syracuse, Boston College to collect first 2 ACC wins – Duke Chronicle

What started off as a relatively easygoing weekend for No. 18 Duke with a 6-1 victory against Syracuse ended in two tiebreaks that showcased the Blue Devils’ newfound spirit, as they eventually took down the Eagles 6-1 as well.

Sunday, the team’s top singles player, freshman Shavit Kimchi, faced Boston College’s Marice Aguiar. Kimchi had taken the first set 6-3 but was struggling to close out the match. Neck-and-neck to start the second set, the Sdey Hemed, Israel, native couldn’t seem to control her serves or shots from the baseline. The set proceeded to run away from Kimchi, forcing her to play a deciding tiebreak. While the freshman started the tiebreak with a resounding overhead, she soon began to make some uncharacteristic mistakes. After a double fault and a few shots dumped into the net, Aguiar began hitting even harder. Although Kimchi tried to regain her footing by coming to the net and attempting a drop shot, Aguiar was always ready with a powerful return. In a last-ditch attempt down 12-11, Kimchi hit a lob over Aguiar’s head that landed just outside of the singles sideline.

“When she finally got up in the tiebreaker, she played tentative. I told her that, ‘when you’re up, that’s when you have to make someone come up with shots there.’ Hopefully it’s a learning lesson for her…” said head coach Jamie Ashworth. “When you have the opportunity to swing and to end points you have to do so. You can’t hope the opponent misses, and I thought that’s what she did a little bit.”

The last tiebreak of the day featured senior Karolina Berankova, who faced Seren Agar on court 6. The entire match until the tiebreak had been close, but Berankova stepped up when it mattered most. The Prague native had won the first set also by way of tiebreak (9-7), before dropping the second. Despite the tiebreak starting off on the wrong foot for Berankova as she was down 4-1, she found her groove just in time to even out the score. From then on out, the senior never stopped putting pressure on Agar. Particularly on lengthier rallies, the senior’s persistence and consistency shone. Berankova, who had struggled to receive Agar’s first serve throughout the match, went on to quite fittingly finish the tiebreak with an ace. 

Berankova’s victory sealed Duke’s 6-1 win against Boston College — its second ACC win of the season.

“Every time we play, it’s an opportunity to show that we can keep getting better. Regardless of the opponent, regardless of what’s going on, it’s an opportunity to play the ball, not play the team across the mat, and just keep trying to get better. I thought we did that this weekend,” said Ashworth.

Coming off of two conference losses against Miami (5-2) and Florida State (6-1), the Blue Devils (8-4, 2-2 in the ACC) had something to prove this weekend. As such, the team played with a revived sense of urgency in its matchups against both Syracuse Friday and Boston College Sunday. 

“I told them if we can’t be verbal in practice, there’s no way you’re going to do it in the match. It’s just like shots that you select in the court. If you can’t do it in practice, you shouldn’t be trying it in matches,” Ashworth said about the changes made in practice over the past week. “I think we just have to practice that way, and practice being emotional and practice with a high level of energy. Then, it’s easy to carry that into the match days.”