Saturday was Senior Day for the Oregon men’s tennis team, and the Ducks hosted USC at home in front of more than 100 fans.
USC edged the Ducks 4-3.
Oregon faces Washington on Saturday in Seattle in its final match of the regular season.
But for the three Oregon seniors, the end was a snapshot that captured the course this season has taken.
Arron Spencer embodied “frustration” as he sat hunched over, elbows on his knees, face down, forehead resting on the butt of his racket.
With his right shoulder troubling him, Spencer was pinned behind the baseline playing defense for most of his match against Kaes Van’t Hof. All he’d been able to do was block Van’t Hof’s big left-handed serve, and lob the ball back at the Trojan, who easily absorbed the weak shot and went in for the kill. After losing the first set 6-0, Spencer surrendered the fight and retired.
Just like it had last year, his shoulder injury had ended his season.
At 9-9 in the third-set super tie-breaker, Thomas Bieri stopped trading points with his opponent. Eyes hardening with resolve, Bieri strode to the baseline, wound up, and delivered a bullet-like wide angle serve to the outside corner of Dejan Cvetkovic’s forehand court.
Then Bieri did it again. Same serve, other end of the court. Cvetkovic floundered to return, and Bieri ripped a swift passing forehand into the very same spot where he had scored the previous point. 6-4, 2-6, 1-0 (11-9). The quiet, 6-foot-6 Swiss jumped up, pumping his fist in triumph, relieved that his spotty play in the second set had not cost him the match.
After Bieri’s victory, Markus Schiller was the last Duck left on the court. Locked in a rally against Jamil Al-Agba at 3-2 in a third set super tie-breaker, Schiller showed the crowd gathered around his court why he was ranked 77th in the country.
Al-Agba peppered the court with shots intended to drag Schiller out of position. But Schiller’s feet moved quicker than Al-Agba’s arm. The German oozed with confidence as he chased down ball after ball, making the crowd gasp as he leaped into the air in full extension to reach what seemed to be a perfectly placed wide-angle backhand and sent it past Al-Agba.
Schiller won the next point in almost the same way, after which the Trojan slammed his racket into the court in frustration. He was awarded a code violation – his second – and Schiller won by default, 6-1, 5-7, 1-0.
With the doubles point the Ducks had captured earlier, and wins from Bieri and Schiller, the seniors could have won it all on Senior Day if Spencer had been able to play out his match against Van’t Hof.
“It was kind of said at the (post-match review) table today that the three seniors could have all won, and we’d have won the match against USC whom we’ve never beaten before,” Spencer said. “It’s just really disappointing that I kinda feel like I was that third leg and that I was the oneout of the three seniors who kind ofdropped it and let it go.” Spencer chose to start that day even though his shoulder was giving him problems.
“The whole year’s been my choice, whether I played or not,” he said. “I didn’t feel much worse today than I did the last few matches, so I really figured I was gonna come out and at least compete with the guy like I have before.
“Usually I’m able to get some sort of adrenaline to at least get me through it. Today it was painful to even grip tight enough to keep my racket steady.”
Bieri also played injured on Sunday. He had to call for a trainer to work on his back at the end of the second set, but he finally found rhythm against Cvetkovic in the tiebreak.
“My back problem wasn’t the reason why I lost the second set, but it was kind of lingering in my head, and I started to feel pain as Cvetkovic started to play better,” Bieri said. “It always works that way – if your opponent is starting to play better and you have something that hurts you, it hurts more.
“I sure didn’t want to lose in the super tie-breaker on my last day here. So I stuck in there and played two important points.”
In spite of his singles win, Bieri walked off the court dejected.
“At first I was obviously happy that I’d won. But after that happiness, I realize that we should have had them today,” he said. “Should have sounds horrible, but this was winnable today. I think this was the worst USC team I’ve seen in a long time.
“They were insecure coming in here, and I’m just really disappointed that some of the guys didn’t stay longer in their matches. I really wish there had been more fight.”
Schiller is the only Duck who has managed to compile a winning record, and the only Duck who might get a glimpse of postseason play.
“I personally played well today and I thought that was important for the team, but I’d rather have the team win,” Schiller said. “I guess that’s kind of been the story all season long. I thought we had a chance to win today.”
“Realizing today that this was my last match at Oregon was definitely a little bit of a factor in my match,” he said. “I lost some focus in the second set, but I think I would have taken it no matter what.
“You play, you see all the people, and you realize this is it. This could be your last serve or your last forehand as a Duck and that’s it. I’ll definitely miss this – the supporters, the friends I’ve made, and just being around the team.”
The Oregon women’s tennis team had a similarly disappointing weekend in California. The Ducks lost 4-3 to Loyola Marymount on Thursday before getting swept 7-0 by both USC and UCLA on Saturday and Sunday.
“The Loyola match is the one match that I’d really want to have back this year,” Oregon women’s coach Nils Schyllander said. “UCLA and USC are very good. Our young players looked pretty tired, and we were a little short on bodies.”
“We just made too many mistakes and unforced errors.”
The Oregon women host ashington State Sunday at noon for Senior Day.