Lady Vols tennis dominated for the second straight round, defeating Duke, 4-0, to advance to the Super Regional round of the NCAA Tournament.
Riding the tails of a 4-0 sweep over Murray State on Saturday, the path for the No. 16 Lady Vols (20-7) didn’t get any easier against the No. 21 Blue Devils (16-10), a team Ojeda or the Lady Vols have not found much success against. While Duke had an up-and-down season, it had some strong moments, including a win over No. 14 NC State.
The Lady Vols persisted right out of the gate, continuing their dominance in the round of doubles with another victory.
Catherine Aulia and Lauren Anzalotta handled business on Court 3, winning, 6-3. Esther Adeshina and Alana Wolfberg won Court 2 just seconds later by the same score.
“I have been working hard the last couple of weeks on my game,” Adeshina said. “I said I wanted to serve better today, get a better first serve position, and I did that. I stuck to my game, held in there, and it worked.”
The nerves that head coach Alison Ojeda touched on after Saturday’s match seemed to waver quickly on Sunday.
Adeshina continued the run at Court 6, winning, 6-2, 6-1. The victory gave the Lady Vols an early 2-0 lead.
“The key for us was: ‘Let’s get to this point to where we are firing on all cylinders,'” Ojeda said. “Because we know we are a good team all season, and that’s what we showed today.”
Wolfberg joined in next, winning Court 3 with a convincing score of 6-1, 6-4. Wolfberg has shined for the Lady Vols over the past two days. The Lady Vols then found themselves comfortably in the driver’s seat with a 3-0 lead, and both Cabezas and Anzalotta threatened to finish the job.
Anzalotta was the one to clinch on Sunday. She has been a valuable piece to the team in singles play, sitting just one win behind her partner Aulia for team leader in singles wins.
The final match scored 6-1, 6-4 in favor of Anzalotta and the Lady Vols, but the win did’t come without a fight. Anzalotta found herself down 4-1 late in the second set, before going on a 5-0 run to ultimately steal the set and game from Duke.
“For me, it meant everything,” Anzalotta said. “I think it was something super special. Just being able to pull forward for my team when I was 4-1 down is massive.”
Sofia Cabezas, Elza Tomase and Aulia all held leads, but their matches did not finish due to the early clinch.
The Lady Vols now head back to the Super Regional for the second consecutive season under Ojeda. They will head to Stillwater, Oklahoma, to take on No. 1 Oklahoma State.
“Everybody we play against is good,” Ojeda said. “We are good. But there’s a difference walking on the court thinking that you may win this match or you are going to win this match. It’s not being cocky. It’s just being confident in the preparation and everything that we do.”
