Until sophomore Anna Powaska injured her knee in a singles match on Thursday, freshmen Claudia Hirt and Carmen Seremeta of the Oregon women’s tennis team didn’t even know they’d be playing doubles together at the Pacific-10 Conference Championships in Ojai, Calif., over the weekend.
When Powaska went down, Oregon coach Nils Schyllander looked to his freshmen to step up and fill the void. Schyllander’s confidence in his rookies paid off. Seremeta replaced Powaska to play doubles with Hirt in the Pac-10 invitational doubles draw, and the pair proved to be a dynamic partnership.
Capitalizing on a first-round bye, Hirt and Seremeta started the tournament with a quarterfinals match against Washington State’s Aleksandra Cekic and Aleksandra Stefanova. The Oregon pair won that match 8-3 and raced through the rest of the bracket.
“Claudia and Carmen played great,” Schyllander said. “They played really clean, simple tennis. And I think this week Carmen played the best doubles she’s ever played before.” They pulled out an 8-5 win over California’s Marion Ravelojaona and Claire Ilcinkas in the semifinals and squeaked past Arizona State’s Wendy Pilecka and Rebecca Rankin to take the final match 8-6, clinching the Pac-10 invitational women’s doubles title Sunday.
“We were feeding off each other,” Hirt said. “We were the only two (Ducks) left in the tournament, and we both wanted to win it so bad.
“In the beginning, we never thought we’d go all the way. But then we got better and better after every match. And suddenly, it was like ‘We can do this!’”
Until Friday afternoon when they went up against Cekic and Stefanova, Seremeta and Hirt had only played in one doubles match together.
They lost 8-2 to USC’s Judy DeVera and Amanda Fink on April 15. But Seremeta thinks that something was different at the Ojai tournament.
“We were just really pumped. I was playing with a lot of confidence,” Seremeta said. “I often get nervous during matches, but I liked the way I was able to focus this weekend and not get nervous.”
Hirt had a lot to do with that. With her bubbly personality and nerves of steel – exemplified by the numerous 11th hour wins she has clinched for the Ducks this season – Hirt kept her partner loose and relaxed.
“Carmen does get nervous sometimes before doubles. In the warm up, she was so tight. She wanted to be perfect,” Hirt said, laughing. “I got her to loosen up. I was like ‘Carmen, relax! It’s just a game!’”
Hirt, who played doubles with Anna Leksinska earlier in the season, infused her new doubles partner with a high level of energy over the weekend.
“Playing doubles with Carmen was a little different because she and Anna are such different people, with totally different doubles styles,” Hirt said. “Anna and I played the same doubles style; we’re both really good with volleys. But Carmen has perfect groundstrokes to set me up at the net.
“We complemented each other really well and the energy was there. Throughout the doubles there were some periods that I could feel she was nervous. I just tried to pump her up, say the right things. And I guess it worked.”
Oregon’s other doubles teams also fought close matches, but couldn’t close out any wins. In the main draw, Ceci Olivos and Dominika Dieskova, lost 9-8 (4) in the round of 16 to UCLA’s Elizabeth Lumpkin and Alex McGoodwin. Monica Hoz de Vila and Jamie Marshall also fell 8-6 to Cal’s Jessica Shu and Cristina Visico in their first-round match.
The Oregon men didn’t have much success in the doubles in Ojai, but Vlad Pino gave the singles tournament his best shot.
The unseeded underdog battled his way into the quarterfinals of the Pac-10 men’s singles invitational bracket, only to fall 6-2, 6-1 to eventual champion Blake Muller from Stanford.
“Vlad did great. He beat very good players from some of the California schools,” Oregon men’s coach Kevin Kowalik said. “I don’t put expectations on the guys, but he wasn’t seeded, and if you want to look at it from that perspective, he shouldn’t be doing that well.”
All three men’s doubles teams also failed to get past the first round.
Both the men’s and women’s teams now look ahead to Wednesday when they will find out if they get bids to play in the national tournament.