Photo by Erez Aidlin
It felt like we were robbed of a few exciting quarterfinal matches.
After sealing their spot in the NCAA Singles Championship (All quarterfinalists and consolation bracket finalists receive a berth), Blue Devils No. 7 Irina Balus and No. 31 Aspen Schuman withdrew from competition.
Balus and Schuman both disappointingly retired after a few games in their QF, but it appears Xu will play hers to completion. https://t.co/q0pem8pyFq— John (@JTweetsTennis) September 25, 2026
Duke head coach Jamie Ashworth cleared the air on their retirements.
“Aspen came out and played well, but wasn’t 100% healthy,” Ashworth said. “They come into [the tournament] as a mixed thing because you want to get to the quarters. You want to get into the NCAA tournament. When you get that, it’s kind of a relief.”
Schuman was matched up against Texas’ No. 26 Rose Nijkamp.
“The physicality of the matches [Irina] won, 7-6 yesterday morning, she had a two hour break and just wasn’t feeling great. It’s a tough position because you play the tournament to win the tournament, but you also play this tournament to try to qualify for the NCAA tournament, and she accomplished that… She’s gonna play another tournament coming up this week, and I think in her mind, it was ‘okay, I’ve done what I need to do here. Let me prepare for what I have next.”
Balus would have faced No. 39 Nao Nishino of Ohio State. Interestingly, both players who were theoretically fresher fared worse in their semifinal matches. Nijkamp fell to No. 3 Luciana Perry (Ohio State), and Nishino fell to Duke’s third quarterfinalist, Mimi Xu.
Earlier in the tournament, Duke had another retirement. The highly anticipated No. 1 newcomer Nina Vargova withdrew from qualifying with an illness.
“Nina played a great first round match in qualifying and just got a little bit of a freshman sickness, being in the dorms for the first time.”
The 21-year-old Slovakian took a dominant 6-2, 6-0 win in the first round of qualifying versus Stanford freshman (No. 5 overall recruit) Keterina Shahbashkevic.
