Coleman Celebrates Birthday by Clinching 4-3 Win Against No. 10 NC State

Friday, March 21

Durham, N.C.

6:00 PM

Duke University

NC State

Photo by: Bri Shaw, Duke Athletics

Coleman Celebrates Birthday by Clinching 4-3 Win Against No. 10 NC State

3/21/2025 11:39:00 PM | Women's Tennis

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DURHAM, N.C. – Duke women's tennis senior Ellie Coleman celebrated her birthday Friday by providing the match-clinching victory to push the seventh-ranked Blue Devils past 10th-ranked NC State at Ambler Tennis Stadium in Durham.

Coleman, who hails from Midland, Mich., clinched Duke's second win of the season against a top 10 opponent as she also posted the final victory versus sixth-ranked Michigan in February. The Blue Devils remained undefeated in ACC action moving to 5-0 on the year, while improving to 13-2 overall. NC State dropped its first league match (4-1) and fell to 9-4 overall.

?? NEVER ?? A ?? DOUBT ??

Ellie with yet another unreal clinch over a Top 10 team ?? pic.twitter.com/oOIfjGsemQ
— Duke Women's Tennis (@DukeWTEN) March 22, 2025

HOW IT HAPPENED

Duke jumped out to an early lead on court three as Emma Jackson and Liv Hovde were very impressive against Kristina Paskauskas and Michaela Laki.The Blue Devils dropped the first game, but responded by winning six games in a row to win, 6-1, in only 21 minutes.
In a battle of two top 13 ranked teams on court two, Duke's 13th-ranked Ellie Coleman and Irina Balus faced second-ranked Gabriella Broadfoot and Maddy Zampardo.The Blue Devils came out and won the first game and then the Wolfpack won two deuce points in a row to take a 2-1 advantage.Duke evened the score on a deuce point, but NC State went ahead, 3-2, on another deuce point.After Balus and Coleman evened the score, 3-3, Broadfoot and Zampardo won two games in a row to go ahead, 5-3.Duke was able to get a point back, but NC State took the match, 6-4.
The key doubles point came down to court two with Duke's Shavit Kimchi and Ava Krug versus Jasmine Conway and Anna Zyryanova.The Blue Devils jumped out to a 2-0 lead, but the Wolfpack came back to even the ledger, 2-2.The match went back and forth with Conway and Zyryanova going ahead, 5-4, late.Kimchi and Krug came back through and tied the score, 5-5, and then won a deuce point off Kimchi's blast from the baseline to take a 6-5 lead.With Krug serving, the Blue Devils took the next game to earn the win, 7-5, and take a 1-0 lead in the match.
In singles play, Duke won the first set on four of the six courts.
The Wolfpack started making a run shortly after by winning the second set on courts No. 1 and No. 4, while taking leads on other courts.
After falling behind early, 2-1, on court three, Jackson evened the score, 2-2, and broke NC State's 99th-ranked Zampardo to take a 3-2 lead.Jackson, who is from Overland Park, Ill., went on to win two more games to go ahead, 5-2.She eventually won the first set, 6-3.In the second, Jackson lost the first game and then won four in a row to take a commanding, 4-1 lead.Zampardo came back again to even the score, 4-4, but Jackson broke Zampardo's serve and won the next game to win, 6-4.Duke went ahead, 2-0.
Court No. 1 featured a pair of top 30 ranked players with Duke's 12th-ranked Balus and NC State's 27th-ranked Laki.After falling behind, 3-2, in the first set, Balus won four out of the next five games to take the first, 6-3.Laki came back and won the next nine games in a row to win the second set, 6-0, and take a 3-0 lead in the third.Balus tried to make a comeback of her own cutting the lead to 3-2, but Laki went on to win the set, 6-2, to give the Wolfpack a point on the board.
Yu, a sophomore from Mason, Ohio, came out against Broadfoot and won the first set, 6-2, on court four.Broadfoot came alive after that and won the next set, 6-1.Yu opened the third with a 2-0 lead, but Broadfoot won six out of the next seven games to take the third, 6-3, and even the match, 2-2.
NC State was able to take the lead for the first time in the match as Zyryanova totaled a 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 win on court two over Hovde.A product of Daniel Island, S.C., Hovde trailed in all three sets, but kept coming back to make each set competitive.After trailing 4-0 in the third, Hovde battled back to trail 5-4, but Zyryanova finished it off winning 6-4.Hovde was right there all match with Zyryanova, but dropped four of the five deuce points in the first set.
NC State's Paskauskas came out in the first set against 66th-ranked Kimchi and totaled a come-from-behind victory to win 7-5, after trailing 3-1 early.Kimchi, who is from Israel, regrouped and won 12 of the final 14 games to win 6-3, 6-1 and even the match, 3-3.
The top 10 battle came down to court six with a pair of ranked opponents – 125th-ranked Coleman against NC State's 121st-ranked Mia Slama.In the first set, Slama was impressive winning 6-2 and went ahead 4-2 in the second.Coleman caught fire winning five out of the next eight games to take the set, 7-5.In the third, Slama led 2-1 and 3-2 early, but Coleman broke Slama to even the score, 3-3.Coleman then won the next game to take her first lead of the set, 4-3, but Slama won a crucial deuce point to tie the score once again, 4-4.With Coleman serving, she regained the lead, 5-4.Trailing 30-15, Coleman made a huge backhand save and went on to even the ledger, 30-30.With it all knotted at 40-40, Coleman was able to come in clutch once again winning 6-4 and giving Duke the 4-3 win.

NOTES

Emma Jackson and Liv Hovde won their fourth consecutive match to move to 5-1 on the season and 3-1 in ACC action in doubles.
Ava Krug and Shavit Kimchi moved to 5-2 on the season and 2-1 in ACC play.
Jackson won her sixth straight singles match to move to 5-0 in ACC play and 21-8 on the year.
After dropping the first set on courts two, five and six, Hovde, Kimchi and Coleman came back to win the second to send their respective matches to a third set.
Kimchi collected her fifth straight win and is now 2-0 in ACC action.
Ellie Coleman won her sixth consecutive match to move to 4-0 in ACC play, 16-6 overall this season and 74-38 over her career in singles.
Duke improved to 25-9 against top 10 opponents at home.In ACC play at home, the Blue Devils moved to 16-4 against top 10 foes, including a 12-3 ledger in Ambler Tennis Stadium.
The Blue Devils improved to 30-1 at home against NC State in the all-time series and 64-2 overall.
Coleman posted her 11th career match-clinching win and second this season.She is now 3-1 in three-set matches this season and 18-11 over her career.
In the match, five of the six courts went to three sets.

QUOTES

"I told our team that NC State was tougher than we were. I thought that we put ourselves in good positions and we won, I think, four first sets.When the match got tough, NC State was tougher than we were.We were able to gut it out at the end and grind out a win. But I thought that when it got close, when it mattered in the beginning of the second sets, when we had a chance to put someone away, NC State was better than we were.But a tribute to our team, to be able to, like I said, to gut that out and get the win over a top 10 team." --Duke head coach Jamie Ashworth
"Ellie and Emma have been great for us through their careers. This year, I think Ellie this is the second match she's been in that situation. Emma's been in the situation before. Hopefully our freshmen, sophomores, our younger kids, can learn from that and understand what those moments mean. You're playing for something bigger than yourself. A lot of junior tennis players come in and are not used to playing for the school or playing for something more than themselves and there's added pressure. I thought that Ellie today handled herself great, and I said Emma -- they set the tone in the doubles." --Duke head coach Jamie Ashworth on the senior leadership
"It's amazing. I couldn't have written the script any better myself. I think it was a great fight. It was a great battle. They're really high-level team.It took the whole team to get down to me at 3-3 and happy I was able to bring it home."--Duke senior Ellie Coleman on clinching the match on her birthday

NEXT MATCH

Duke closes the weekend by hosting 37th-ranked Wake Forest on Sunday, March 23 at 2 p.m.

To stay up to date with Blue Devils women's tennis, follow the team on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook by searching "DukeWTEN".

#GoDuke

#7 Duke 4, #10 NC State 3
March 21, 2025
Ambler Tennis Stadium * Durham, N.C.

Doubles
1. #2 Gabriella Broadfoot/Maddy Zampardo (NCSU) def. #13 Ellie Coleman/Irina Balus (DU) 6-4
2. Shavit Kimchi/Ava Krug (DU) def. Jasmine Conway/Anna Zyryanova (NCSU) 7-5
3. Emma Jackson/Liv Hovde (DU) def. Kristina Paskauskas/Michaela Laki (NCSU) 6-1

Singles
1. #27 Michaela Laki (NCSU) def. #12 Irina Balus (DU) 3-6, 6-0, 6-2
2. Anna Zyryanova (NCSU) def. Liv Hovde (DU) 6-3, 3-6, 6-4
3. #25 Emma Jackson (DU) def. #99 Maddy Zampardo (NCSU) 6-3, 6-4
4. Gabriella Broadfoot (NCSU) def. #41 Eleana Yu (DU) 2-6, 6-1, 6-3
5. #66 Shavit Kimchi (DU) def. Kristina Paskauskas (NCSU) 5-7, 6-3, 6-1
6. #125 Ellie Coleman (DU) vs. #121 Mia Slama (NCSU)
Order of Finish: Doubles (3,1,2*), Singles (3,1,4,2,5,6*)