The 35th-ranked Oregon women’s tennis team fell to 12-6 over the weekend, losing
6-1 to Stanford on Friday and 5-2 to California on Saturday.
But it wasn’t all bad news for the Ducks as junior standout Dominika Dieskova rose above her team’s losing efforts to notch two consecutive victories against top-ranked opponents. Her efforts earned her Pacific-10 Conference Player of the Week honors.
Dieskova defeated Stanford’s Amber Liu 6-2, 6-2 on Friday before putting together a three-set victory against California’s No. 10 Zsuzsanna Fodor the next day.
No. 15 Liu was outmatched by a determined Dieskova, who later heralded her victory against the Cardinal as her “biggest challenge this season.”
“Amber Liu is one of the best players in the nation, and on Friday, I basically killed her,” Dieskova said. “I was serving really well and smart, and I made her run and was very aggressive.”
“Liu has won two NCAA national championships, and she has played Kim Clijsters in the U.S. Open, a grand slam tournament,” Oregon women’s coach Nils Schyllander said. “So Dominika’s win over her is really big.”
Liu lost 6-2, 6-3 to former world No. 1 Clijsters at the 2003 US Open.
“I just want to tip my hat to Dominika,” Schyllander said. “She’s playing amazing right now, and she’s making a good case to be the Pacific-10 Conference player of the year.”
This season, Dieskova is 18-1 in dual-match singles play, with her only loss coming at the hands of Long Beach State’s Hannah Grady.
After steamrolling over Liu, Dieskova exorcised another demon the next day when she won her match against California’s Zsuzsanna Fodor 6-4, 6-7, 10-6.
Prior to Saturday’s tense win over Fodor, Dieskova had never been able to prevail against the Hungarian native, falling 6-3, 6-2 and 6-1, 6-1 in their two previous encounters.
“Fodor’s very tough to play,” Dieskova said. “She can come to the net, she can serve big, she can play to serve. She can pretty much do anything.
“On Saturday, I just told myself ‘you’ve played her twice, you know her pretty well.’ I knew I had to come to the net a lot and just had to be aggressive and not let her get to the net.”
Sticking to her game plan, Dieskova took the first set, but Fodor outplayed her in the second set and didn’t relinquish a single point without a drawn-out fight.
“I was up in the beginning of the second set, then there was this 30 to 40 minute period where she just played amazing,” Dieskova said.
Having forced the match to a super-tiebreak, Fodor and Dieskova continued to battle. Dieskova finally won, 10-6.
“I was just very happy with the way I played,” Dieskova said. “When I played against her in the fall, I let myself get caught in long rallies with her. This time, I just took it to her and knew I had to go to the net earlier. Knowing her game style really helped too. And I didn’t give her many free points.”
With their regular starting lineup plagued by injuries, the Oregon men’s tennis team was unable to pull out any wins from its three matches against three California schools last week. The Ducks lost a close 4-3 match to San Francisco last Monday, before going on the road over the weekend and losing 7-0 to California, and 5-1 to Stanford.
Senior Thomas Bieri returned to action against California after a two-week layoff that resulted when he injured his wrist in the Blue Gray Classic on March 15.
Bieri lost 6-1, 6-2 to the Bears’ Tyler Browne.
“Thomas is still not at 100 percent, but he’s a warrior, and he gets out there and just plays,” Oregon men’s coach Kevin Kowalik said.
In addition to Bieri, freshman Mike Myrhed and senior Arron Spencer are also currently on the injured list.
“Mike has a stress fracture to his left leg. He’s currently in a boot, and he hasn’t played since Alabama (the Blue Gray Classic),” Kowalik said. “Arron has an arm injury. He’s had arm problems in the past, and at this point, it’s better for him to rest than to force things.”
Kowalik thinks post-season play is within Oregon’s reach.
“I think if we win four out of the next five, there’s definitely still a possibility (of post-season.) It’s been tough getting over some of the losses and also the injuries,” he said.