{"id":621917,"date":"2026-04-21T18:26:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T18:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/621917\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T18:26:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T18:26:08","slug":"balus-moves-to-no-12-duke-ranked-no-16-heading-into-ncaa-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/621917\/","title":{"rendered":"Balus Moves to No. 12; Duke Ranked No. 16 Heading into NCAA Action"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>DURHAM, N.C. \u2013 As the Duke women&#8217;s tennis team awaits the NCAA Tournament selection show, the Blue Devils moved up in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) rankings this week to No. 16 nationally.\u00a0<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nDuke has won six out of the last seven matches and feature an 18-7 overall ledger under the direction of head coach <a href=\"https:\/\/goduke.com\/sports\/womens-tennis\/roster\/coaches\/jamie-ashworth\/5278\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"5278\" target=\"_blank\">Jamie Ashworth<\/a>.\u00a0 The Blue Devils are coming off advancing to the semifinals of the ACC Championships over the weekend in Cary.\u00a0<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nSophomore <a href=\"https:\/\/goduke.com\/sports\/womens-tennis\/roster\/irina-balus\/23334\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"23334\" target=\"_blank\">Irina Balus<\/a> continues to move up the singles rankings as she is now listed at No. 12.\u00a0 A native of Bansk\u00e1 Bystrica, Slovakia, Balus has won five matches in a row and is 15-3 this spring in dual match action.\u00a0 She has logged 12 wins against ranked opponents and has a 20-8 overall record in 2025-26.\u00a0<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nDuke freshman <a href=\"https:\/\/goduke.com\/sports\/womens-tennis\/roster\/aspen-schuman\/24107\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"24107\" target=\"_blank\">Aspen Schuman<\/a> continues to move up in the rankings as well and is currently No. 47.\u00a0 She has clinched each of the last four Blue Devil wins and collected a 16-4 record this spring.\u00a0 A product of Menlo Park, California, Schuman has won nine out of her last 11 matches.\u00a0<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/goduke.com\/sports\/womens-tennis\/roster\/liv-hovde\/23336\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"23336\" target=\"_blank\">Liv Hovde<\/a>, a sophomore from Daniel Island, South Carolina, continues to be ranked and comes in at No. 120.\u00a0 She owns 14 wins on the year with three of those against ranked foes.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In doubles play, Duke features three ranked tandems \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/goduke.com\/sports\/womens-tennis\/roster\/shavit-kimchi\/23337\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"23337\" target=\"_blank\">Shavit Kimchi<\/a>\/Balus (#45), Kimchi\/Hovde (#50) and Hovde\/Balus (#55).\u00a0<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nThe team of Kimchi and Balus have teamed together over the last few weeks and made their debut in the rankings this week.\u00a0 They have registered three wins, including two against ranked opponents. Kimchi and Balus are coming off notching a 6-4 win over eighth-ranked Melodie Collard and Vivian Yang of Virginia in the ACC Championship.\u00a0<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nThe NCAA Tournament selection show will air at 4:30 p.m., Monday, April 21 live on NCAA.com.\u00a0<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nTo stay up to date with Blue Devils women&#8217;s tennis, follow the team on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook by searching &#8220;DukeWTEN&#8221;. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>#GoDuke<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DURHAM, N.C. \u2013 As the Duke women&#8217;s tennis team awaits the NCAA Tournament selection show, the Blue Devils&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":621918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":{"0":"post-621917","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/621918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}