Until the Ducks’ most recent home match against Sacramento State on Feb. 4, the last time Oregon senior Dominika Dieskova came anywhere close to absorbing a double-bagel defeat was in October 2004 when she fell 6-0, 6-2 to USC’s Nicole Leimbach, who would eventually be ranked eighth in the nation.
Dieskova has engineered double bagels against others several times in her career. But against Sacramento State’s Katrina Zheltova, Dieskova found herself on the receiving end of a 40-minute nightmare that ended in the Ducks’ number one singles player’s 6-0, 6-0 defeat to an unranked freshman.
“Basically it went quick. Which means that I was missing quite a bit. I guess I just overpowered my shots and went for too much,” said Dieskova, who holds a 80-49 career record as a Duck.
Eight dual matches into her final season at Oregon, Dieskova’s 5-3 record is a far cry from last year. The Slovakia native started her junior season with a seven-match winning streak before losing a three-set match to Washington’s Hannah Grady – a mere glitch on her radar en route to a 14-2 start that eventually culminated in a 30-12 singles record, a berth to the national tournament in singles and doubles and the No. 37 national ranking to end the season.
Senior Slump
Dieskova’s early season slump is due largely to a more offensive style of play that she’s working to incorporate into her game plan.
A win against Zheltova would have clinched the Sacramento State match for the Ducks; instead, it’s one of two 4-3 losses they’ve suffered this year. And Dieskova knows that if she’d reverted to the defensive style of play that she’s used to, she could have won.
But she stubbornly refused to give up on playing offense.
“I can play defensively and beat these girls. But I’m at that point where I’ve been doing that for three years and I’ve been winning matches on defense and I’ve proved that I can do it,” she said. “Now I want to win matches with my game. Dictating and pressuring my opponents. I just need to find the right rhythm for my forehand.”
Her teammates understand her woes and want to support the change.
“In tennis, if you change something it always takes awhile,” sophomore Claudia Hirt said. “It’s very, very hard for (Dieskova) right now because she’s in a situation where she wants to win for her team but she also wants to do what Paul (Reber) says.
“She knows it’s a good change and that in order to get there she has to sacrifice a little bit right now. She will get there.”
With her 6-foot build and natural athleticism, Dieskova has what Oregon coach Paul Reber once described as “the perfect tennis body.” She is quick, agile and long-limbed with an extraordinarily long reach that gives her a natural advantage because she can stretch for balls that most of her opponents would readily classify as unreturnable winners.
“She has that lanky body with long arms and legs, and that gives her so much more racket speed and a big serve,” Reber said. “She covers the court very well and can make you play the extra ball. She’ll play a bit of defense and then make the extra shot. Against her, you’ve got to be able to jump on balls and put it away.”
Dieskova’s dogged persistence is one reason why she has held sole possession of the No. 1 roster position ever since former Oregon standout Daria Panova graduated in 2005.
This year, however, Dieskova and Reber have been trying to switch from sure-bet defensive wins to a more aggressive, offensive-oriented style of play. And they’re convinced that correcting Dieskova’s tendency to reach out with her long arms and moonball shots on the forehand side will be the key to offensive success.
“We’re not really changing anything, just having her be more aggressive with (the forehand),” Reber said.
Reber wants her to develop more of a follow through on her forehand stroke, and to attack with more consistency.
“In the past, when she’d come in, it used to be a chip and charge,” Reber said. “Now, compared to what I remember her doing in the fall and in the past when I coached against her (at Arizona State), she’s gotten better.”
But better did not mean good. Dieskova is still not completely comfortable with these new tactics. And her discomfort manifested itself in the Sacramento State match. Against Zheltova, Dieskova’s groundstrokes were erratic at best, with a good number of potential winners landing in foul territory beyond the baseline.
“My game is to dictate, but not by hitting winner after winner,” Dieskova said. “My game’s always been a whole court game where I can come up with everything and put the pressure on my opponent by creating a situation where I can go to the net and finish the ball at the net.
“What I was trying to do (against Zheltova) was hit winners from the baseline.”
While Reber has emphasized the need for a more aggressive forehand, Dieskova says he never intended to have her deviate from her net game and start hammering shots from the baseline.
“I was kind of stubborn and I just wanted to stick to what I’d practiced. And during that match, I was so convinced that I was doing the right thing,” Dieskova said. “I didn’t give up. (Throughout) the whole match, I was like ‘it’s gonna come, it’s gonna come, if I just do my thing.’ I was swinging, and it was just flying a little longer past the baseline, and then a little longer.”
Right afterwards Dieskova walked around optimistically, cheering her teammates on. It was only later, after the Ducks had lost 4-3 to the Hornets, and after she’d had time to let the day’s results stew, that the reality of the situation finally set in.
“I was upset. Maybe it didn’t look like it on the court, but it hit me afterward. Especially after we lost 4-3, and I was like, ‘wait, wait, you completely screwed up right?’” Dieskova said.
Reber wasn’t very happy with her performance either.
“He yelled at me, kind of. Well, any coach wouldn’t be happy with his No. 1 player losing in 40 minutes 6-0, 6-0,” Dieskova said. “And that’s not what he wants from me: to basically go crazy on the court. He told me that’s not acceptable, that I have to find a way to battle back.”
Climbing back up
That’s exactly what Dieskova did last weekend in Colorado: battle back.
Vowing that the Sacramento State match was “the first and last time I’ll lose 6-0, 6-0,” Dieskova took a different approach to her still-evolving aggressive forehand strategy when she played Denver’s Annette Aksdal on Friday.
“I didn’t try to hit winners from the first ball,” Dieskova said. “I played the point out, I felt more comfortable on the court, and my serve seemed to be working well.”
As a result, she won 6-4, 5-7, 6-2, and the Ducks won 4-3 (6-2 overall).
On Sunday, Dieskova continued the same blend of new and old techniques when she faced Colorado’s 36th-ranked Monica Milewski. The result was the same: a triumphant Dieskova at the end of a 6-2, 3-6, 6-2 duel, and a 5-2 win for Oregon .
“My problem on the court is that I need to be more aggressive, but not overly aggressive,” Dieskova said. “And in those matches I think I found the golden middle way to go, which I was missing in the matches before.”
Still, Dieskova’s early season troubles have contributed to the Ducks’ two losses this year, and they are also not helping her climb the singles rankings. She was ranked a career-high 26th nationally in September’s pre-season rankings, but began the regular season unranked because of a lack of resulting from an injury in the fall. Yet, she is determined to keep working to perfect her new game plan.
“I’m not too bothered about not being ranked. Because honestly, it’s great to be ranked, but all three years, I’ve just focused on playing one match at a time. And then the wins will come,” she said.
[email protected]