The Ducks ran into a juggernaut.
Oregon women’s tennis hosted No. 13 Stanford (14-2, 7-0 Pac-12) on Friday with hopes to avenge a pair of losses to the Cardinal a season ago. In 2022 the Ducks fell 6-1 and 4-0 to a loaded Stanford squad. This year – against a somehow improved Cardinal roster – the No. 43 Ducks (11-6, 4-3 Pac-12) fell 0-4 to Stanford to kick off a four game homestand to close out the regular season.
“I thought we fought hard,” Oregon coach Courtney Nagle said. “I thought Stanford played pretty well on a lot of courts and they made it tough. But I thought we fought.”
Stanford began the match by boasting its No. 25 ranked doubles pairing of Angelica Blake and Alexis Blokhina. The stellar duo took down Oregon’s Sophie Luescher and Uxia Martinez Moral 6-1 while Connie Ma and Valencia Xu dealt Ares Teixido Garcia and Madisen Olsen a similar 6-1 fate.
Myah Petchey and Karin Young’s match against Alexandra Yepifanova and Sara Choy was left unfinished as Stanford captured the first two matches in doubles play.
The Cardinal walloped the Ducks in doubles play to go ahead 1-0. So far in 2023, Oregon is winless when not securing the doubles point. It’s unclear if this trend or Stanford’s loaded roster should have been a bigger tell of what came next.
The Ducks didn’t win any of the singles matches. Only Martinez Moral was able to salvage as much as a set.
Twice last season Oregon’s Luescher and Stanford’s Ma faced off. Both times Ma swept Luescher. Friday was no different as No. 12 Ma breezed past Luescher with 6-1 and 6-2 set wins. Ma is now 14-3 on the season and 60-14 in her career while Luescher falls to 4-7 in 2023. This match – in the No. 1 slot – finished first and put Stanford ahead 2-0.
The Ducks were without Jo-Yee Chan on Friday. The freshman has been so consistent for Oregon this season. She’s been nearly unbeatable in doubles play and a formidable opponent in singles matches. Coach Nagle said they’re taking Chan’s return day by day.
Olsen took over for Chan in the No. 6 spot but was quickly dealt a loss by Choy with 1-6 and 0-6 losses. Olsen is now 0-2 on the season and the loss brought Oregon to the edge of defeat.
Yepifanova dealt the Ducks their final blow. The No. 20 player in the nation squared off against Oregon’s Teixido Garcia in the No. 2 slot. As expected from two players with a power-centric game, both athletes traded blows on Friday, but Yepifanova overpowered Teixido Garcia with 3-6 and 2-6 set wins to improve to 15-1 in 2023. The win sealed the match for the Cardinal and brought an end to the rest of the singles matches.
Martinez Moral was down 3-5 in the second set of her match against No. 75 Blokhina. Martinez Moral won the first set 6-2 and was one of the bright spots in a hard-fought loss.
Petchey was down 2-4 in her second set with No. 40 Blake. Blake won the first set 6-3 and looked to be pulling away from Petchey again when the match ended.
Young was tied with Xu 3-3 in the second set of their match. Xu won the first set 4-6, but each point was a battle. Nagle voiced the opinion of many in the Student Tennis Center when she said that she’s confident Young would have found a way to extend the match to a third set had they continued playing.
It would be nice to say the schedule for the Ducks gets easier from here. In a sense it does – No. 13 Stanford doesn’t have much competition – but Oregon’s final three matches of the regular season are all against ranked Californian opponents. No. 37 Cal (Sunday), No. 26 UCLA (April 14) and No. 29 USC (April 16) all await the Ducks as they fight for seeding in the end of the season tournament. Entering the weekend, Oregon sat at third in the conference. That seeding is in dire danger of dropping if the Ducks can’t string together some late season wins.
“No matter who we play, I think we can compete with anyone,” Nagle said. “In tennis, you never know what can happen.”
