The 41st-ranked Oregon women’s tennis team takes on Brigham Young today in Palo Alto, Calif. in the first round of the NCAA tournament.
The two-week break that the Ducks have had since the Pacific-10 Conference championships has done the battered team good, and Oregon might have sophomore Claudia Hirt back in the lineup today.
Hirt spent the last month recovering from an ankle injury sustained in practice. But she started practicing with the team again last week, and Oregon coach Paul Reber says she’ll be a last-minute decision for the match today.
“We’ll have to wait and see. I don’t want to put her out there if it’s going to be risking further injury or make it worse,” Reber said. “I don’t want to make her play if she’s not ready to go – and she knows this – so it’s really her call as to whether she’s going to play or not.”
As of Tuesday, Hirt said she was feeling good with the racquet, but had limited mobility.
“I’m hitting pretty well, but I’m a little bit scared with running now,” Hirt said. “I’m scared of hurting myself again, so it’s hard for me to say how close to good I am right now. And even when I’m hitting, there’s definitely some soreness that keeps coming back.”
If Hirt plays, Reber says she will most likely play doubles with Carmen Seremeta. That means that sophomore walk-on Tina Snodgrass will be slotted into the lineup at No. 6 singles.
On the upside, senior Dominika Dieskova – who struggled with shoulder problems in the second half of the season – comes off the two-week hiatus feeling healthier than she has in a while.
“I feel good. I’m finally healthy and ready to play, and I’m just going to enjoy the last couple of matches of my Oregon career,” she said. “I can serve 100 percent again; I’ve been hitting my backhand. Nothing bothers me.
“I actually forgot how that feels, so it’s good to be back.”
Oregon last played Brigham Young in 2006 and lost 6-1 to the Cougars. Strangely enough, most of the women remember that match as a close defeat, and agree that even though the three-seed Ducks are the underdog against the second-seeded Cougars, Oregon is in for a close match.
“I think our chances are very good. The big question now is whether Claudia is going to be back,” Reber said. “Like they said in the selection show, we’re a team moving in the wrong direction: we’ve lost six of the last seven matches.
“And the Cougars certainly have more momentum from winning their conference tournament and getting into the NCAA tournament than we do. But I think we’ll be fine.”
An Oregon victory over the Cougars and a Stanford win over Sacramento State could set up a showdown between the Ducks and the defending national champions.
Oregon has historically performed poorly against the Cardinal, but the team has adopted the stance that the national tournament is a clean slate, and anything can happen.
“In the last couple of years, if we got one point against (the Cardinal) it was, like, good, right?” Dieskova said. “But we’re the underdogs, we’ve got nothing to lose. And all the matches I’ve played against girls from Stanford this year have been very close, so I’ll just have to take care of the important points and see if it goes my way.”
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