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Duke to Open ITA Regional Championships Thursday
10/18/2017 6:32:00 PM | Women's Tennis
DURHAM, N.C. - The Duke women's tennis team makes the short trip to Chapel Hill, N.C. to begin competition at the ITA Regional Championships presented by Oracle. The five-day tournament, running from Oct. 19 through Oct. 23, will take place at the Cone-Kenfield Tennis Center.
“This is kind of the tournament at the end of the semester to put everything together,” said head coach Jamie Ashworth. “We want to put together good play with getting good results as the result of the work we've put in practice. We've changed practice the last week and a half to try to give them more individual time, try to really concentrate on things each of them need to work on to have a good week. We're looking forward to getting back out there and competing.”
Senior Rebecca Smaller opens the tournament with play in the qualifying draw. Smaller has a bye in the first round and will meet the winner of Appalachian State's Teodora Sevo and Elon's Montana Moore on Thursday morning. With a win, Smaller will move into the main draw.
Also starting play on Thursday will be sophomore Meible Chi and freshman Ema Lazic, with the pair playing in the doubles main draw. It will be the first collegiate matches for Chi and Lazic as a doubles tandem. The Duke duo will play the winner of a match between Davidson's Sam Armas and Ava Todd and USC's Nikolina Jovic and Ingrid Martins. Chi and Lazic will take the court at 3 p.m.
“Meible has to take a little bit of a leadership role. She's played in these kind of tournaments before,” Ashworth said. “I think both of them can win free points on their serve and if they can return well, and not give away a lot of free points, they'll be fine together. It's something that we need to see. We had the results of two good doubles teams out in California, but for us to do well in the spring, we need to have three good doubles teams, not two. It's a great opportunity for them to see what they can do together.”
Starting on Friday, Duke's remaining six players will enter in the singles main draw. It will be only the second time this fall that Duke will have all seven members at the same tournament.
“To bring everyone back together is important because we want them to know they have each other's back, whether it's a team tournament or individual tournament,” commented Ashworth. “They want to know their teammates are there supporting them and truly want them to win and do well. That pays dividends in April at the ACC Tournament when you're the last one on the court, you want to know that your teammates truly believe in you and trust you and want you to win. That whole process starts at events like this in the fall. We're excited to play and we're to have that opportunity to see how good we can be.”
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