Oregon (5-2, 0-0 Pac-12) faced off against the Portland Pilots (4-2, 0-1 West Coast) in the Student Tennis Center for their eighth match of the regular season. After some extremely close singles matches, Portland narrowly came away with a 4-3 victory.
Portland earned the initial lead after taking the doubles point. Alyssa Tobita/Nia Rose won their No. 1 match against Lucia Butkovska/Jelena Lazarevic, 6-3. However, No. 2 and No. 3 doubles were dropped with identical 6-4 scores by doubles pairings Nicole Long/Marlou Kluiving and Lina Akesson/Paloma Gomez. The doubles match was Gomez’s first official game as a member of women’s tennis after joining a few days ago as a walk on.
“I think she (Gomez) did great,” said head coach Alison Silverio. “You know, having to come out and compete right away without much preparation, she handled herself in a first class manner. The mental side is the biggest thing in these matches and she was able to control a lot of her emotions. Even though the score didn’t go her way, I think she’ll certainly learn a lot from today and be able to carry that into our next week of practice and our next matches.”
The six singles points were highly contested. After splitting the first four matches, it came down to the No. 2 and No.5 spots to determine who would clinch the meet. Oregon needed both matches to win; Portland needed one. Both games went into a third set.
Tobita played UP’s Mladenovic in the No. 2 spot. Akesson played Sophie van den Aarssen in the No. 5 spot.A kesson ended up dropping her match 7-5, 3-6, 3-6, giving Portland the game-clinching point. Tobita won hers 6-3, 6-7, 7-5 in what was an extremely back and forth game. The second set of Tobita’s match was determined by a tie-breaker.
“Portland is a very talented and competitive team this year and we knew we were going to have battles on every spot,” Silverio said. “It’s always fun when you have these battles. Certainly, you’re going to want them to go your way, but either way you learn so much and…we’ll be able to take this and learn from it and it will propel us forward as we go throughout the season.”
Follow Anne Yilmaz on Twitter @anneyilmaz.