A year that started for Oregon tennis with preseason individual tournaments in October comes to an end this weekend with the Pacific-10 Conference Championships in Ojai, Calif.
Leading off for the Ducks in the main draw is junior Sven Swinnen with an 8 a.m. match against No. 27 Matt Hanlin of Washington.
Hanlin should prove to be a tough first match after he bested Oregon career singles victories leader Oded Teig in three sets last weekend.
Teig and Swinnen seem to be trading enemies as Teig battles Or Dekel of California, winner of a three-set match against Swinnen earlier this month.
Duck sophomore Manuel Kost, ranked 47th in the nation, will take on Chris Letcher of Arizona State. Closing out the main draw for the Ducks is Thomas Bieri, facing Washington’s No. 18 Alex Vlaski, who lost to Kost last weekend in straight sets.
The No. 66 men will also send four singles players to the invitational portion of the touranment.
Senior Jason Menke takes on Tim Mullane of Arizona, while freshmen Andrew Walker and Arron Spencer battle Cal’s Steve Berke and Stanford’s Philip Sheng respectively. Junior Chris King faces Wayne Wong of Cal in one of the last matches of the first round.
The No. 40 women send three players each to the main draw and invitational portions.
Leading the way for the Ducks is No. 20 Daria Panova against No. 49 Dianne Hollands of Arizona. Panova won the preseason Pac-10 Indoor Championship in January and is currently ranked ninth in the conference.
Closing out the main draw for the Ducks is No. 55 Courtney Nagle taking on UCLA’s Shilpa Joshi and freshman Jamie Marshall battling Washington State’s Chris Martinez.
Surprisingly absent from both the main draw and invitational, but present for doubles, is Duck senior captain Monika Geiczys. Geiczys, winner of two matches against Martinez earlier in the season, is coming off a big win in San Diego after losing four of her last six.
The Ducks send freshmen Julie Merle and Anna Leksinska and sophomore Ester Bak to the invitational section of the tourney.
Merle begins the day for the Ducks with a match against Dinka Hadzik of Washington, while Leksinska, who beat Hadzik in a dual match earlier in the season, takes on Arizona’s Kristy Randono.
Duck sophomore Bak, winner of a straight-set match over Randono in February, closes out the first round of the Invitational portion by taking on Kristen Case of Cal.
Matches continue throughout the day for both the men and women with winners playing an afternoon match to decide who moves on to the quarterfinals on Friday.
The tournament will focus on singles the first day with doubles starting on Friday morning.