Boise State head coach Mark Tichenor paced around the Student Tennis Center on Saturday, glancing up at the scores and shaking his head as his team dug itself into a deep hole in its dual match against the Oregon women’s tennis team.
The Ducks (10-2, 1-1 Pacific-10 Conference) scored the first five points in the match en route to defeating Boise State (3-4) in a relatively stress-free 5-2 victory. It was Oregon’s 12th-consecutive victory in regular season non-conference games, dating back to last season.
“I was pleased with the way we played,” Oregon head coach Nils Schyllander said. “I think we took care of business. We got to four (points) pretty quick, and it wasn’t very stressful.”
The Ducks jumped out to a 1-0 lead after sweeping all three doubles matches. The
15th-ranked duo of Daria Panova and Dominika Dieskova improved to a 9-3 doubles record with their triumph over Boise State’s Megan Biorkman and Alissa Ayling, 8-2.
Dieskova then helped the Ducks take a
2-0 advantage when she defeated Ayling in straight sets, 6-3, 6-1. The 20-year-old Dieskova won the last five games of the match and improved her singles record to 9-3.
Oregon took control with a sizable 3-0 lead when Panova stopped Biorkman’s late rally attempt in another straight-set win, 6-1, 6-3.
“I think I played real good in the first set,” Panova said. “Second set, she wouldn’t give up.”
Panova led the second set 5-1 before her opponent took a break point and then held serve. Oregon’s No. 1 player said she was tired at the end of her match because of a trip to Arizona a week ago, and she “just wanted to win” as fast as possible.
“I was thinking, ‘The match is almost over, I need to win one more game,’ and (I finally got it),” Panova said.
Senior Ester Bak then sealed the fourth point — and victory — for the Ducks with her win against Broncos’ senior Anna Curtolo, 6-3, 6-2. Bak, a Beaverton native, has solidified the bottom half of the singles lineup all season long and improved to a 7-3 singles record with the win.
“I had a really good week of practice,” Bak said. “I knew what I had to do. I had a game plan, and I stuck with it.”
The 21-year-old said early on that she realized her opponent’s weakness and took advantage of that throughout the match.
“I could tell from the beginning that the girl had a weaker forehand, so I was playing to her weakness,” Bak said. “I was then able to close it out, and I played my game.”
Oregon then took a commanding 5-0 lead when senior Davina Mendiburu closed out Nadja Woschek at the No. 3 position,
6-4, 6-0. Mendiburu has an 8-4 singles record for the season.
Anna Leksinska and Jamie Marshall suffered the only two losses for the Ducks in hard-fought matches. Despite winning the first set, Leksinska lost both the second and tie-breaking third sets against Tiffany Coll, 2-6, 7-5, (10-2).
Marshall nearly came back against Boise State’s Carolina Pongratz after losing the first set and taking the second to a tiebreaker. But like Leksinska, Marshall fell short and ran out of gas, losing 6-1, 7-6 (7-0).
The Ducks play two more non-conference matches, both at home in the Student Tennis Center. Oregon faces Princeton at noon on Sunday and Brigham Young at noon March 19. Pac-10 play resumes March 22, when the Ducks travel to take on No. 8 Washington.