Claudia Hirt, a freshman on the Oregon women’s tennis team, began a love affair with tennis at the age when most people are still trying to develop enough hand-eye coordination to draw circles with their Crayola crayons.
When she was 4 years old, she happened upon a plastic racket and a soft ball in a toy box at home in Lucerne, Switzerland.
“I just picked them up and started playing every day for hours against the garage. I just couldn’t stop,” Hirt said. “So eventually my parents decided that I should take lessons. I started real tennis lessons when I was 5.”
The little girl who couldn’t stop bopping a soft ball against the garage grew up to be the No. 1 junior in central Switzerland, and the No. 17 ranked women’s player in the country.
Hirt even got to meet, and beat, current world No. 1 Roger Federer.
“Roger’s godfather was the president of our tennis club, and one day Roger came to the club to visit,” Hirt said.
Her father put her on the phone with Federer, who asked the then-15-year-old Hirt if she wanted an autograph.
“I told him that I’d prefer to play tennis with him,” Hirt said, laughing.
So Federer suggested that Hirt come to the club to play him. He actually had to persuade her to play him because Hirt initially told him she was too busy.
“I was like, ‘I don’t have time. I’m busy, and I have school and stuff – but I’ll see what I can do,’” she said.Hirt eventually found the time to meet Federer.
“I went to the club, and we talked a little. He was so nice. Then we just played a little bit, hitting back and forth. And at the end, we played one real point, and I won it!” Hirt said. “That was quite funny; I’ll never forget it.”
Five years later, Hirt’s tennis obsession and industrious nature have brought her to Oregon.
“It’s all because of Manuel Kost,” Hirt said.
Kost, who is also from Switzerland, played for the Oregon men’s tennis team from 2001-05. He suggested that Nils Schyllander, the women’s tennis coach, try to get his friend Hirt to come to Oregon.
“Nils just called me one day, and I was like ‘Wow, you want me to do what?’” Hirt said. “After high school I actually had no idea what I wanted to do. All I knew was that I wanted to keep playing tennis. It would have been too expensive to go pro, so this was my only opportunity to keep playing at a high level.”
The 20-year-old freshman signed with the Ducks last April, and came to Oregon without ever having visited the United States. She now lives off campus with teammates Dominika Dieskova and Ceci Olivos, and Markus Schiller from the men’s tennis team.
“I love it here, and I couldn’t imagine being in a different place. It’s just about the people. I’ve made so many friends here,” said Hirt, whose teammates call her “Clo.”
“The team asked me about my nickname, and so I said that my family and my best friend called me ‘Clo’ at home,” Hirt said. “There, it’s pronounced ‘Cluuu,’ spelt ‘Clo,’ but with an ‘o’ that has two points on the top.”
In trying to explain how the word should properly be pronounced, Hirt also happened to mention that it sounded like the word ‘toilet’ in German. So of course the name stuck.
Six months into her career as a Duck, Clo is turning out to be the kind of athlete opposing teams should warn their players about before they step onto the court.
Her best asset is her steely resolve and unshakable poise in clutch situations, Schyllander said. Whenever the scoreboard reflects a losing score, her crystal blue eyes freeze over and Hirt digs in, prepared for a vicious fight.
“Claudia becomes a lot more mentally aware and focused when the match is on the line,” Schyllander said, “She just thrives in those situations. As a coach, I sometimes wish she would start the match with that focus, and not get herself into close-match situations to begin with. She’ll play a loose game here and there. But with the match on the line, that’s when she starts to really focus.”
This season, Hirt has contributed the winning or equalizing points in four out of the Ducks’ five dual matches that have been decided by a two-point margin or less.
Against Boise State in January, Hirt was the second to last Duck off the court, winning her match 7-6, 6-1 after being down 1-4 in the first set. In Seattle against the Huskies, Hirt engineered another three-set masterpiece to beat Monika Kolbovic 4-6, 6-2, 6-2. Two weeks ago, Hirt again led the Ducks to a 4-3 victory over Colorado when she came back after dropping the first set to overpower Gleisy Torres Torres 5-7, 6-3, 6-3.The other thing that Hirt has going for her is the sheer power of her game.
“When Claudia first got here, she was almost too powerful for her own game,” Schyllander said. “She was banking on simply overpowering people because that’s how she found success in junior tennis. She’s a very strong player. But at this level, we’re trying to teach her to harness that power and play smart. In a year or two, the girl’s going to be a national force.”
Hirt is 7-1 in dual singles play this season and 5-4 in doubles with senior Anna Leksinska.
“We always have so much fun playing doubles,” Hirt said of her high-energy partnership with Leksinska. “We are laughing, we are dancing, we are screaming. We just don’t care at all what others think. We’re both kinda crazy.
“Doubles is all about interacting with your partner. You can feel it when it just fits. And me and Anna fit. We just complement each other well.”
“No one has more fun on the court than we do,” Hirt said. “But doubles or singles, it doesn’t matter. I just love to play. Especially when it’s close. It’s always me. Last on the court.”