No. 24 Blue Devils Fall, 4-1, to No. 5 North Carolina in ACC Women’s Tennis Action

Wednesday, April 1

Durham, N.C.

5:00 p.m.

Duke University

North Carolina

Photo by: Duke Athletics

No. 24 Blue Devils Fall, 4-1, to No. 5 North Carolina in ACC Women’s Tennis Action

4/1/2026 8:40:00 PM | Women's Tennis

Box Score Box Score (PDF)

DURHAM, N.C. — The 24th-ranked Duke women's tennis team gave fifth-ranked North Carolina all they could handle Wednesday afternoon in front of a standout crowd inside Amber Tennis Stadium, but the Tar Heels came away with a 4-1 victory in the end.

Blue Devil freshman Claire An collected her first collegiate ranked singles victory in the match for Duke. With the loss, Duke dropped to 12-6 overall and 6-2 in the ACC, while North Carolina improved to 19-2, 7-1.

How It Happened

The doubles action was tightly contested on all three courts from the start.
On court three, Duke's Liv Hovde and Aspen Schuman dropped the first game, but came back to win the next two games to go ahead, 2-1. After North Carolina's Tatum Evans and Maddy Zampardo evened the score, 2-2, Duke won back-to-back games to take a 4-2 advantage. The Blue Devils dropped a deuce point in the next, but responded by winning the next two games to win, 6-3.
After going ahead, 3-2, on court one, Irina Balus and Shavit Kimchi dropped two straight games against fourth-ranked Oby Kajuru and Susanna Maltby to fall behind, 4-3. Duke broke the Tar Heels to even the score, 4-4, but lost the next two games to drop the set, 6-4.
The doubles point came down to court two with 84th-ranked Duke's Eleana Yu and Claire An versus third-ranked Reese Brantmeier and Alanis Hamilton. After falling behind, 1-0, the Blue Devils held serve and then broke UNC to go ahead, 2-1. North Carolina won three games in a row to take a 4-2 lead, but the Blue Devils stormed back to win two consecutive games to even the score, 4-4. The Tar Heels won the final two games to clinch the point, 6-4.
In singles action, the Blue Devils struck first as Duke's An was impressive from the start dropping only three games and defeating 111th-ranked Anna Frey, 6-1, 6-2, on court four. The win for An marked her first collegiate ranked singles win.
In a battle of two top-15 ranked players, Duke's 15th-ranked Balus faced No. 2 Brantmeier on court one. Balus dropped the first two games, but battled back to trail, 3-2, and 4-5, but eventually lost the first set, 6-4. In the second, Balus won the first game and was tied, 5-5, but Brantmeier broke Balus and won the set, 7-5, to give the Tar Heels a 2-1 lead.
Schuman, who is ranked No. 77 went up against No. 8 Kajuru of North Carolina on court two. In the first set, Schuman led, 2-1, but Kajuru broke Schuman to even the ledger, 2-2. With the match tied, 3-3, Kajuru won three out of the next four games to take the set, 6-4. Schuman dropped three deuce points during the stretch. The second set was back-and-forth with the contest tied at 2-2, 3-3 and 4-4, but Kajuru won the final two games to put a third point on the board for UNC.
On court six, Yu went up against 108th-ranked Alanis Hamilton. Trailing, 2-1, Yu held serve to even the score, 2-2. Hamilton ended up taking a 5-3 lead, but Yu fought back to even the score, 5-5, on a crucial deuce point. North Carolina won the final two games to take the first set, 7-5. In the second, Yu won the first game, but Hamilton won six out of the next seven to clinch the match with a 6-2 victory.
When the match was clinched, Hovde was trailing 27th-ranked Evans on court three, 6-7 (4-7), 3-5. Hovde showed grit in the first set fighting back from being down, 6-5, but after being tied, 3-3, in the tiebreaker Evans took control and won the first set with a 7-4 tiebreaking victory.
Kimchi jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first set against Zampardo on court five, but UNC made a run of her own winning the first set, 6-4. In the second, Kimchi opened with another 3-0 lead and led 4-1, before Zampardo battled back to even the score, 5-5. Kimchi though finished strong to take the second set, 7-5, when the match was clinched.

Notes

In rookie Claire An's first match against a ranked opponent at Duke, she registered the straight set victory to improve to 11-4 overall and 4-0 in ACC action. She has won five matches in a row.
Duke's doubles duo of Aspen Schuman and Liv Hovde improved to 2-0 on the season and 2-0 in ACC play.
The loss for Duke snapped a 19-match home winning streak for the Blue Devils.
The Blue Devils suffered only their 18th loss in Amber Tennis Stadium over this history of the program. Duke is now 133-18 all-time.

Quotes

"Doubles is such a fine line between winning those doubles points and losing the doubles points. And it was actually one of the better doubles matches we've played. I think in the moments when it was close with big points, UNC did a better job of being a little bit more aggressive than we were and we were more in a mindset of, I hope they miss here. Hopefully, we learned from that this weekend. It's been a work in progress for doubles all year and hopefully we're starting to take some steps forward to end this year." – Duke head coach Jamie Ashworth
"Kind of the same thing carried over into singles as doubles. I think we were 1-5 in games, when it was 5-4 in the set, or something like that. That just shows me, in those moments, they did a better job on the big points, and we put ourselves in some good positions. But again, I thought we were too conservative when we needed to be more aggressive. I told them after we can't hang our heads. We've had a lot of matches like this and we're going get one, but we just have to keep building, keep doing the little things the right way." – Duke head coach Jamie Ashworth
"She's done everything we've asked, which is great as a freshman. Knock on wood, she hasn't been beat since National Team Indoors in February and she has been working hard. She's been really steady off the baseline and not giving up a lot of free points. A lot of college tennis is the ability to stay on the court and make people work for the point. She did a great job of that today and she's done a great job with that really all year. So, we need her to keep doing that." – Duke head coach Jamie Ashworth on freshman Claire An

Next Match

Duke will remain home this weekend as the Blue Devils host Georgia Tech Friday, April 3 at 5 p.m., and then welcome Clemson Saturday, April 4 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

#5 North Carolina 4, #24 Duke 1
April 1, 2026
Durham, N.C. * Ambler Tennis Stadium

Doubles
1. #4 Oby Kajuru/Susanna Maltby (UNC) def. Irina Balus/Shavit Kimchi (DU) 6-4
2. #3 Reese Brantmeier/Alanis Hamilton (UNC) def. #84 Eleana Yu/Claire An (DU) 6-4
3. Liv Hovde/Aspen Schuman (DU) def. Tatum Evans/Maddy Zampardo (UNC) 6-3

Singles
1. #2 Reese Brantmeier (UNC) def. #15 Irina Balus (DU) 6-4, 7-5
2. #8 Oby Kajuru (UNC) def. #77 Aspen Schuman(DU) 6-4, 6-4
3. Liv Hovde (DU) vs. #27 Tatum Evans (UNC) 6-7 (4-7), 3-5, unfinished
4. Claire An (DU) def. #111 Anna Frey (UNC) 6-1, 6-2
5. Shavit Kimchi (DU) vs. Maddy Zampardo (UNC) 4-6, 7-5, unfinished
6 #108 Alanis Hamilton (UNC) def. Eleana Yu (DU) 7-5, 6-2

Order of Finish: Doubles (3,1,2*), Singles (4,1,2,6*)