Duke Freshman Beatrice Capra Adjusting to College Life
Blue Devil rookie able to overcome temptation of professional tennis
By Mark Patton
The call of professional tennis was incredibly loud and extremely close for Beatrice Capra when she went three rounds at the 2010 U.S. Open as an 18-year-old amateur.
She hears a different sound today, however, as the No. 1 singles player for the women's team at Duke University.
"Somebody on the next court will be cheering for me, and it's so different, and so comforting," the freshman star explained. "And then I'll hear someone else cheering for me six courts down.
"No matter what the score is, or how tough your match is, you have your team right there with you. And that's been amazing."
It's also reaffirmed Capra's "real tough decision" to delay her entry into the pro ranks, her 2010 upset of the U.S. Open's No. 18 seed notwithstanding.
"Trice knows her best tennis is still ahead of her, and that having the support of this team and university can really help her," Duke coach Jamie Ashworth said. "She knows that your career isn't over now if you haven't made it by age 22.
"There are people out there making it who are 28, 29, 30 and they're having good, long careers. She knows that if she puts in the work and gets stronger, and we give her the right foundation, her best tennis is ahead of her."
It's been good at Duke so far for Capra. She's ranked No. 4 in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association singles rankings for the No. 3 Blue Devils, leading them to a second-place finish at the ITA National Women's Team Indoor Championships in Virginia.
"It's been so rewarding and so much fun," she said. "Everybody means to much to me on our team, and they've helped me so much in adjusting to everything during this first year of college.
"I'm so happy to cheer for my team, they're my best friends. I wouldn't be where I am without them."
Capra was even able to take something away from Duke's 4-0 defeat to No. 4 UCLA in the championship match of the ITA Indoors on Feb. 13.
"There was so much intensity," she said. "Even though it was 4-0, every match went three sets. We lost a tough doubles point, and everyone on the sideline was cheering so loudly.
"I didn't realize how much energy you expend doing that, and then you have to go out and play your singles match. It takes a lot out of you, but it is so much fun. I love my team."
Capra and Rachel Kahn beat UCLA's Robin Anderson and Skylar Morton 8-2 at No. 1 doubles, improving their season record to 9-0, but the Bruins won the other two matches to claim the doubles point.
Capra, who beat the seventh-ranked Anderson last fall at the 2011 USTA/ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships in Flushing, N.Y., lost the rematch to UCLA's star freshman, 6-1, 3-6, 6-2. The match-up has become a budding rivalry between what Ashworth rates are leading candidates for NCAA Freshman of the Year honors.
"It's funny, but we'd never actually played each other before college, and here we've already had these two great matches in the last four months," Capra said. "She's a great competitor. We both really love to win and are going to fight until the end every time.
"I love playing her because she'll give it her all every time, and you want to beat somebody like that."
Capra is 12-3 in singles this year, with her only other losses coming to No. 1 Allie Will of Florida and No. 29 Aeriel Ellis of Texas.
She owes her existence to the sport of tennis, she admits with a laugh. Her mother, former University of South Florida star Laurie MacGill, met her father, Giovanni Capra.
on the courts.
"He was from Italy, and he came over here to Maryland and had started a business when he decided to take some tennis lessons," Capra said.
He got Laurie as his instructor, and the rest would become U.S. Open history.
Capra had just graduated from Laurel Springs School when she earned a wild-card entry into America's Grand Slam event. She knocked off Karolina Sprem in straight sets and then stunned No. 18 Aravane Rezai 7-5, 2-6, 6-3.
"I remember that day perfectly — it felt just like a dream," Capra said.
Maria Sharapova, the 2006 Open champ, slapped her awake 6-0, 6-0 in the third round, but the teenager from Maryland had already caught the fancy of the professional tennis world.
"It was really tempting at the time to turn pro, but that win (over Rezai) was really random," Capra said. "I had played a couple of pro tournaments earlier that year and hadn't done as well. I really want to start winning those kind of matches consistently before I turn pro."
She was only 14 when she started thinking about attending Duke. She got a glimpse of the campus when rain forced a tournament at Raleigh, N.C. to see refuge inside the Blue Devils' indoor courts in Durham.
Capra did take a year off after high school, however, to hone her game. She even played for World Team Tennis' Philadelphia Freedom before enrolling in Duke.
The experience of playing the likes of Venus Williams convinced Capra that she needed to get stronger to, as Ashworth put it, hit "a heavier ball."
"Trice still has a lot of growing to do both with her game and in just getting physically stronger," he said. "Coming here, she's been able to work on her game while still playing some of these professional events.
"We're also able to provide for her as far as the strength and conditioning stuff are concerned, and she's also able to work toward her degree."
She's also been taken under the wing of Mallory Cecil, who won an NCAA singles championship when she was a Duke freshman in 2009.
"Mallory turned pro the year after that, but she's actually back in school to get her degree," Ashworth said. "She was in a situation that was similar to Trice's, playing No. 1 as a freshman and going through the same things.
"She's become a really good friend of hers."
Capra, who plans to study journalism, has become a popular figure all over the Duke campus.
"The biggest thing for Trice has been time management," Ashworth said. "There are a lot of demands on her, and she's such a social person that she doesn't like to say no — and that's something she has to learn.
"We were just gone for five days, and if her roommate and someone else comes in and says, 'Hey, let's go to dinner,' her first instinct is to say yes.
"She's getting better at that, though. She's learning."
It is, after all, what students do.
