Carmen Seremeta and the freshman-heavy Oregon women’s tennis team (13-10 overall, 4-6 Pacific-10 Conference) came into their own against Washington State on Sunday afternoon.
With the match tied at 3-3, the crowd had converged around the court where Seremeta was trying to pull off a third-set comeback against Washington State’s Marjolein van de Ven.
Seremeta lost the first set 6-3, and had barely managed to edge van de Ven 7-6 (7-2) in the second set tiebreaker.
But in the third set, the Duck from Cupertino, Calif., seemed to find her momentum.
With break point at 4-3, Seremeta unleashed a backhand cross-court winner that should have won her the game. But van de Ven called let, claiming that an errant ball lying by the side of her court had moved and distracted her.
There was a brief hiatus as Nils Schyllander, Oregon’s coach, took up the issue with the chair umpire.
“Nils said the ball didn’t move and that van de Ven had played the whole point that way,” Seremeta said. “I couldn’t see the ball because the net was in the way, so I don’t know whether it rolled or not. But I just tried to stay focused and get the next point.”
The umpire refused to overturn the ruling and Seremeta had to play the point out again.
Van de Ven served and the two women exchanged a series of high, lofting returns back and forth before Seremeta found an opening and ripped a forehand past her opponent to tie it at 4-4.
From then on, the match belonged to Seremeta. The freshman showed remarkable patience as she rallied back and forth with van de Ven, biding her time and looking for an opportunity to go in for the kill.
In the end, Seremeta took the third set 6-4, emphatically claiming the deciding point when she sent a weak van de Ven lob flying across the court with a sharp backhand slice.
With that point, the three Duck freshmen presented senior Jamie Marshall with a 4-3 victory at home on Senior Day.
The Ducks had come out strong, taking the doubles point against the Cougars. In singles, freshman Claudia Hirt was the first off the court, overwhelming Aleksandra Stefanova 6-2, 6-1. Ceci Olivos, another first-year player, followed with a quick 6-0, 6-3 victory over Aleksandra Cecik.
For a while, it looked as if the Ducks would sweep the Cougars. But then juniors Monica Hoz de Vila and Dominika Dieskova wilted, and when sophomore Anna Powaska lost, Seremeta became the difference between victory and defeat.
“It’s kind of poetic that the freshmen won it all for Jamie today,” Seremeta said. “I did kind of feel the pressure when I realized that I was the last one left.
“But I tried not to think about it because I knew I could win; I’d beaten her before and the whole match was really for me to win or lose. She wasn’t really doing anything to hurt me.”
Schyllander was almost more relieved than Seremeta was.
“It was pretty close,” he said. When Seremeta was down 4-2 in the second set, “I got her to just slow it down a little bit and attack the right balls because the girl was just baiting her and Carmen didn’t have the patience she needed to have.
“She made some adjustments and played a great tiebreaker to take it to the third. And that match was history.”
Like Seremeta, Hirt also played on Sunday with Marshall in mind.
“It was pretty cool to win like that,” Hirt said. “I just told myself to play the best that I could today for Jamie. And we did a pretty good job. It’s kinda funny to see that all the freshmen basically won it.”
Hirt paired up with Marshall to play doubles against van de Ven and Ekaterina Burduli. Despite the fact that they lost 8-3, to Marshall, the significance of the match went way beyond the scoreline.
“It definitely got a little hard and a little stressful when I was out on the court, when I realized that this was my last time,” Marshall said. “And it was also hard at the start of the day when they announced my name and everything, and I started to tear up.”
The team presented Marshall with two bouquets of flowers and a framed montage of pictures from her four years on the team.
“It was just sad,” Marshall said. “Sad but good. If definitely felt good to win on my Senior Day – it would have been a little depressing otherwise.”
The Oregon men’s tennis team (6-17, 0-8) wasn’t as fortunate. In Seattle for the weekend, the Ducks were steamrolled 7-0 by the 18th-ranked Huskies on Saturday.
The Ducks were overrun in straight sets at every position. Markus Schiller and Vlad Pino came closest to capturing a win for Oregon when they narrowly lost their doubles match 8-6 to Klaus Jank and Andy Kuharszky.
Next up for both the men’s and women’s teams is the Pac-10 Championships in Ojai, Calif., this week.