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FREELANCE REPORTER
The Oregon women’s tennis team is No. 22 and climbing and look to break into the top 20 as they host No. 46 Long Beach State today at 1 p.m. and No. 54 Denver on Sunday at 9 a.m.
“Long Beach is very good,” Oregon women’s coach Nils Schyllander said. “They’re even stronger than the Colorado team that was here last weekend.”
Colorado has been the Ducks’ biggest challenge at home to date. Oregon eventually won 4-3 in a tight match decided by freshman Claudia Hirt’s 11th-hour comeback win.
Oregon’s solid play this season can be attributed to the way the Duck freshmen have stepped up their game according to the steep learning curve of the college game, according to Schyllander.
“You don’t replace Daria Panova with one player, you do it by committee,” he said. “I’m very happy with the way we did last weekend. I thought the young people did a lot of very good things.”
Carmen Seremeta is one of those people. The freshman from Cupertino, Calif., has been churning out wins from the No. 3 singles position and is 7-0 on the season.
“Carmen has improved so much. She can do a lot more now than she was able to in the fall,” Schyllander said. “She’s more comfortable coming forward and with going for the volley. She hits the ball very flat on the backhand, and she’s a tough matchup for some players because she keeps the ball very low and can angle it around the court.”
Seremeta also serves without much of a backswing – something that most tennis coaches frown upon.
“I had tendinitis in my shoulder as a junior in high school, and had to completely change my serve,” Seremeta said. “So now, I don’t focus so much on the backswing, I just try to get my arm up really quickly. I think my serve’s actually a lot more powerful now than it was before.”
Schyllander doesn’t think Seremeta needs to correct her unconventional serve technique either.
“It works for her, and it’s nothing we want to change,” he said.
Ceci Olivos is another Duck freshman who has entrenched herself in the starting lineup this season. Olivos is half of Oregon’s No. 49-ranked doubles team.
Playing in tandem at the No. 1 doubles spot with junior Dominika Dieskova, Olivos has amassed seven doubles wins and has only dropped two singles matches in dual play this season.
Olivos also has one of the most severe game faces of anyone on the team when she’s on court. When she’s in the middle of a match, her dark eyes fill with intensity and it’s hard to get her to crack a smile until the final point has been played out.
“I think I look stressed because I’m always really focused,” she said, laughing. “But I don’t want to get relaxed. Because when I get relaxed, maybe when I’m winning, I stop playing the way I should be playing.
“I think I play better under pressure, or when I play against better players. Because then I keep my focus the whole time.”
The Oregon men’s tennis team also goes into this weekend with big hopes. The Duck men are 5-2 on the season, but none of those wins have come against nationally ranked opponents.
Oregon lost to No. 75 Santa Barbara last weekend and was shut out by Lousiana-Lafayette 0-7 the week before.
“I think we just need to be more consistent,” Oregon men’s coach Kevin Kowalik said. “It’s not that these teams we’ve played so far are unbelievably better, everyone just has to play at a more consistent level.”
Senior Arron Spencer agrees.
“Last weekend was just frustrating,” he said. “Santa Barbara was a very beatable team and we just didn’t take care of business.” Spencer lost his match 2-6, 6-3, 3-6 to the Gauchos’ Bijan Hijazi in Oregon’s 2-4 losing effort.
“I was up in the third in my match and I kinda just let a couple of things get at me,” Spencer said. “Some bad calls were made and I let that bug me even though I knew better, and I preach that to everyone all the time.”
Senior Markus Schiller thinks the young Ducks just need to get more experience. Schiller was one of only two Ducks to win against Santa Barbara.
“Last weekend was tough,” Schiller said. “Everybody lost the first set and I just told myself that I couldn’t lose to Santa Barbara.
“As a senior, you’ve played more in those kinds of situations and you know how to deal better. If you lose a set, you know you can come back. If you’re a freshman, you lose a set and you see everyone else down a set, it’s kinda hard to keep that belief in yourself. I think that’s key.”
The men’s team goes up against No. 63 Fresno State and No. 10 Washington at home this weekend, beginning with Washington today at 6 p.m.
This is only the second year since former Ducks’ coach Chris Russell switched sides and took on an assistant coaching position with the Huskies.
“Chris recruited our juniors and seniors, so he obviously has an inner knowledge of some of the guys on our team,” Kowalik said. “But that’s not to say that we don’t know how their guys play too.
Because in college tennis, everyone plays everyone else so much that you get to know other players’ playing styles.”
Seeing Russell on the other end of the court when Oregon plays the Huskies is always a little hard for Spencer, a Eugene native.
“I’ve known the guy since I was in middle school, and I love the guy to death,” Spencer said. “So it’s definitely hard seeing him in purple, seeing his family in purple, and seeing his little kids run around in purple. Not a very pretty sight, I’ll just put it that way.”
Oregon swings for top-20 rank this weekend
Daily Emerald
February 23, 2006
Oregon’s Carmen Seremeta is 7-0 on the season at No. 3 singles. The freshman from Cupertino, Calif., led the team in wins last fall with a 10-2 record.
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