Last season the young Oregon men’s and women’s tennis teams finished last in the Pacific-10, but this season the experience should bring better results.
The men’s team under coach Chris Russell, the 2000 Pac-10 Coach of the Year, only loses David Becker from last season’s roster. Last year’s team, which finished 0-7 in the Pac-10 and 8-13 overall, fielded five freshman and two sophomores with Becker, a senior.
Oded Teig is Oregon’s top men’s returnee. He finished last season with the team’s best record at 21-17. He has 43 career wins entering this season, four shy of the school’s top-10 list.
The men’s team finished its home schedule last season with three straight victories over Portland, Santa Clara and Portland State. But the team then finished the regular season with seven consecutive road losses.
The doubles team of Martin Pawlowski and Teig defeated Arizona State’s Nic Dubey and Matt Klinger 8-5 in the first round at the Pac-10 championships before losing to K.J. Hippensteel and Alex Kim of Stanford, 8-5 in the quarterfinals.

The men’s team this season not only has experience on its side, but a favorable schedule with five of its final six matches at home. The team ends the regular season in Seattle against Washington.
Like the men’s team, the women’s team will use experience to lead them towards winning ways. The women lose no players from last season’s team, and Adeline Arnaud, Vickie Gunnarsson, Janice Nyland and Valerie Young return as seniors.
Last year the women finished 0-7 in the Pac-10 and 5-17 overall. But seven of the team’s losses were by only one point.
Sophomore Courtney Nagle finished 18-7 in singles and sophomore Davina Mendiburu finished 16-7. Nagle’s record was the second best single-season record in school history and Mendiburu’s was the fifth.
Both teams are coming off disappointing seasons, but with the two teams losing a combined one player, the 2001-02 season looks promising.