South Carolina women’s tennis was defeated by No. 8 Duke with a score of 4-0 on Saturday at the Sheffield Indoor Tennis Center in Durham, North Carolina.
The match began with doubles play, where Lauren Friedman and Helena Buchwald secured a strong win for South Carolina, beating Duke’s Shavit Kimchi and Eleana Yu 6-2. However, Kaitlyn Carnicella and Taylor Goetz lost their match on court one to Liv Hovde and Claire An, 6-4. The doubles point was decided on court three, where Jane Dunyon and Jana Stojanova pushed their match to a tiebreak before falling 7-4 to Irina Ballus and Aspen Schuman. This gave Duke the opening point.
In singles competition, Dunyon and Stojanova each won their first sets before play was stopped as Duke clinched the overall victory. On court two, Buchwald was defeated by Aspen Schuman in straight sets. Carnicella faced No. 98 Liv Hovde from Duke in a close contest but lost both sets 6-4. Goetz dropped her first set to No. 93 Shavit Kimchi and then fell in the second set as Kimchi secured the final point needed for Duke.
The matches involving Sara Borkop against Elena Yu, Jane Dunyon against Claire An, and Jana Stojanova against Ava Krug were left unfinished after Duke clinched the team victory.
South Carolina will next compete at home against Georgia Tech on February 7 at the Carolina Indoor Tennis Center before hosting Clemson on February 10.
After this result, South Carolina continues its early season schedule seeking its first win against ranked opponents.
