Blue Devils Fall, 4-3, in NCAA Tournament Heartbreaker

Saturday, May 6

Durham, N.C.

5 PM

Duke University

UCLA

Photo by: Duke Athletics

Blue Devils Fall, 4-3, in NCAA Tournament Heartbreaker

5/6/2023 11:21:00 PM | Women's Tennis

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DURHAM – In a tightly-contested match on Saturday evening in Durham, the sixth-seeded Duke women's tennis team fell in a 4-3 heartbreaker to 20th-ranked UCLA in the NCAA Tournament second round at Ambler Tennis Stadium.

The Blue Devils' impressive season came to an end with a 23-5 overall record, while UCLA advanced to the final 16 with a 15-7 record. Duke's 27-match home winning streak and 11-match unbeaten streak in NCAA Tournament matches in Durham came to an end.

How It Happened
•   All three doubles courts were tight matches with Duke taking the first win on court two as 82nd-ranked Karolina Berankova and Emma Jackson never trailed in their match against Ava Catanzarite and Sasha Vagramov. The Blue Devils won a crucial deuce point to take a 2-1 lead and then broke the Bruns to lead 4-2. Duke went on to win, 6-3.
•   Duke's Iuliia Bryzgalova and Georgia Drummy led 3-2 against Anne-Christine Lutkemeyer and Fangran Tian, but UCLA came back to win three straight games to lead 5-3. After the Blue Devils cut into the lead, 5-4, the Bruins won 6-4.
•   On court one, the doubles point came down to Duke's 69th-ranked Ellie Coleman and Chloe Beck against UCLA's seventh-ranked Kimmi Hance and Elise Wagle. Duke led 3-1 early with a break on a key deuce point. The Bruins came back to win two consecutive games to even the score, 3-3. With the match tied, 4-4, Duke held serve to take a 5-4 lead. UCLA won two straight games to go ahead, 6-5, and was serving for the win. The Blue Devils trailed 40-15, but came back to even the match, 6-6. In the tiebreaker, Duke won the first five points with very impressive play. UCLA responded by winning two in a row, before the Blue Devils won an intense point to take a 6-2 lead. The Bruins once again won two more points and Duke closed the match with a 7-4 tiebreaking win to clinch the doubles point.
•   Both teams came out and won the first set on three of the six courts in singles.
•   UCLA was able to get its first point on the board as Wagle collected a 6-3, 6-3 win on court four over Coleman. Coleman led 3-2 in the first set, before falling and in the second set was tied 3-3, but Wagle won three consecutive games to win, 6-3.
•   The Blue Devils posted their second and third points of the match in a span of a few minutes as Beck and Jackson won on courts one and three, respectively.
•   Beck, ranked No. 6, was going up against No. 14 Tian on court one and posted a 6-3, 6-4 win. After falling behind, 2-0, in the first set, Beck broke Tian to even the score, 2-2. Beck then won a deuce point to even the score, 3-3, and won the next three games to take the first set. Beck never trailed in the second set.
•   Jackson did not trail in the first set and jumped out to a 5-1 lead, before winning, 6-3. Catanzarite won the first game of the second set and led, 2-1, early. Jackson won a deuce point and broke Catanzarite to take a 3-2 lead and never trailed the rest of the way winning, 6-4.
•   On court two, No. 62 Drummy and No. 112 Hance battled. Drummy was cruising early leading 4-1, but Hance came back to take the first set, 6-4. In the second set, Drummy took a 1-0 lead and then the next seven games were decided by deuce. A total of nine deuce points decided the second set with Hance winning, 7-5, to cut Duke's lead to 3-2.
•   Needing one more point to clinch the victory for the Blue Devils, it came down to Duke's pair of graduate transfers – Brianna Shvets and Bryzgalova.
•   Shvets won the first nine games of the match taking the first set, 6-0, and leading 3-0 in the second set against Lutkemeyer on court six. With the second set tied, 3-3, Shvets took a 5-3 lead, but ended up dropping the second set, 7-6, with a 7-5 tiebreaker. Shvets was leading, 5-2, in the tiebreaker early, but would end up falling. In the third set, Lutkemeyer took a 2-1 lead, but Shvets battled back to go ahead, 3-2. Lutkemeyer went on to win the next four games to even the team score at 3-3.
•   Vagramov led 5-3 in the first seton court five, but Bryzgalova came back to take a 6-5 lead. The first set went to a tiebreaker with Vagramov winning, 7-3. In the second set, Bryzgalova led 2-0 and 4-2, but Vagramov won three consecutive games to take a 5-4 lead. The duo traded games, before heading to a tiebreaker. Bryzgalova once again had a strong start leading 3-0, but Vagramov won four straight points to take a 4-3 lead. Duke's Bryzgalova wouldn't quit winning two consecutive points to lead 5-4, but that would be the last lead for the Blue Devil. Vagramov went ahead, 6-5, but Bryzgalova came back to tie, before Vagramov clinched the UCLA win with an 8-6 tiebreaking victory.

Notes
•   The Blue Devils fell to 35-3 in NCAA Tournament matches played in Durham.
•   Karolina Berankova and Emma Jackson improved to 6-1 on the season together in doubles.
•   Iuliia Bryzgalova and Georgia Drummy dropped only their second match of the season to fall to 14-2 in doubles play.
•   Chloe Beck and Ellie Coleman clinched the doubles point for Duke with a victory over the seventh-ranked team nationally. It marked the highest ranked doubles team the Blue Devils have defeated this season.
•   Beck moved to 31-4 on the season in doubles and posted her 14th win against a ranked opponent this year.
•   Jackson improved to 22-11 overall and 13-5 at the No. 3 singles slot.
•   Graduate student Cameron Morra missed her second straight match with an injury.

Quotes
"Honestly, a lost opportunity – up in sets, up in games, up in matches. And that really hasn't happened to us this year. I just felt like you let a team hang around and hang around, they're going to gain a little confidence, which is what they did. I think at the end they played with more confidence than we did. I think we played a little bit defensive, a little bit scared - not having been in a situation where we had let matches just slip away. Usually, we've been good all year about closing out games, closing out sets and closing out matches. I think when it came down to those crunch times, they stepped up and we backed off a little bit. They just started to gain more confidence, became more vocal – they are tough. UCLA did a great job, I mean, two great coaches, and they did a great job." -- Duke head coach Jamie Ashworth

"I thought once we got through doubles, because we kind of saved ourselves with the doubles there. We scrapped that out. I thought that we could gain a little momentum there, but yeah that's exactly what happened. When it came down to the deuce points or the tiebreakers. I think we were 0-3 in tiebreakers and even other matches were up some sets and up some points and games and they just they just put it better job than we did." -- Duke head coach Jamie Ashworth on if UCLA played the bigger points better than Duke tonight

Next Match
Chloe Beck, Georgia Drummy and Emma Jackson will participate in the NCAA Individual Championships May 22-27 in Orlando, Fla.

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

#GoDuke

#20 UCLA 4, #7 Duke 3
May 6, 2023
Ambler Tennis Stadium * Durham, N.C.

Doubles
1. #69 Ellie Coleman/Chloe Beck (DU) vs. #7 Kimmi Hance/Elise Wagle (UCLA)
2. #82 Karolina Berankova/Emma Jackson (DU) def. Ava Catanzarite/Sasha Vagramov (UCLA) 6-3
3. Anne-Christine Lutkemeyer/Fangran Tian (UCLA) def. Iuliia Bryzgalova/Georgia Drummy (DU) 6-4

Singles
1. #6 Chloe Beck (DU) def. #14 Fangran Tian (UCLA) 6-3, 6-4
2. #112 Kimmi Hance (UCLA) def. #62 Georgia Drummy (DU) 6-4, 7-5
3. #42 Emma Jackson (DU) def. Ava Catanzarite (UCLA) 6-3, 6-4
4. Elise Wagle (UCLA) def. Ellie Coleman (DU) 6-3, 6-3
5. Sasha Vagramov (UCLA) def. Iuliia Bryzgalova (DU) 7-6 (7-3), 7-6 (8-6)
6. Anne-Christine Lutkemeyer (UCLA) def. Brianna Shvets (DU) 0-6, 7-6 (7-5), 6-3
Order of Finish: Doubles (2,3,1*), Singles (4,1,3,2,6,5*)