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No. 12 Dores Blast No. 4 Blue Devils, 7-0 1/25/2004 VU women’s tennis knocks off rival Duke in rout NASHVILLE — The 12th-ranked Vanderbilt women’s tennis team scored a decisive 7-0 victory over No. 4 Duke Sunday at the Brownlee O. Currey Jr. Tennis Center. The Commodores battled to capture a hotly contested doubles point, and then took the top four singles matches in straight sets. In doubles, Vanderbilt got off to a quick start. The 28th-ranked team of Audra Falk and Annie Menees made short work of their opponents at the No. 2 position, winning 8-1 to give the Dores an early advantage. The remaining two matches were close throughout. At No.3, the pairing of Ashley Schellhas and Amanda Fish were broken at 4-3 and could never regain the lead. They would eventually fall by a tally of 9-7. At the No. 1 position, the second-ranked team of Kelly Schmandt and Aleke Tsoubanos were going up against the fifth-ranked duo of Amanda Johnson and Tory Zawacki of Duke. Vanderbilt’s senior tandem won the first game, but the match was back and forth throughout. Neither team was able to hold many of their own serves. Ahead 8-7, Tsoubanos had the match and the doubles point on her racket. The Chesterfield, Mo., native played a serve-and-volley at 40-30 that lead to both teams exchanging volleys at the net. Eventually, the Blue Devils ran out of steam, volleying into the net and allowing Vanderbilt take a 1-0 team lead in the match. Vanderbilt carried its momentum into the singles matches. The marquee matchup at the No. 1 position featured VU junior Audra Falk, ranked No. 39 in the nation by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association, and Duke senior Amanda Johnson, ranked No. 5. Falk put on a dominant performance, taking the first set at love and winning the second set, 6-3, to give Vanderbilt a 2-0 lead. Commodore freshman No. 66 Amanda Fish was the next off the court. At No. 4 singles, Fish won her first set, 6-1, and then battled her way into a second-set tiebreaker, which she also took, 7-3. The decisive blow again came from Tsoubanos. She won her first set, 6-3, and then took a quick 5-2 lead in the second set. Duke’s Jennifer Zika, ranked No. 64, fought back to even the set at five apiece, but Tsoubanos dug in and took the remaining two games to score the knockout punch for Vanderbilt. At No. 6, Menees did not want to be left out of the fun. After losing a tough first set, 6-7 (5), the VU junior fought back and took the second stanza, 6-2. The decisive set was played as a super-tiebreaker (first to ten points, by two). Menees took a mini-break into the first change, leading 4-2, and expanded her lead to 8-4 by the second break. She would finish off Duke’s Kristin Cargill, 10-6, to give Vanderbilt its fourth shutout in as many matches, 7-0. The Commodores (4-0) have a week off before they head to Madison, Wis., to take part in the National Team Indoors. Vanderbilt reached the tournament’s final in 2002, its last appearance at the National Team Indoors. Agate: |
