Rising to the occasion has been the trademark of Oregon men’s tennis this season. In four matchups with top-25 teams, the Ducks played well and left nothing on the court.
Unfortunately, they have lost all four of these matches.
Long odds faced the Ducks as they traveled to Seattle to face Pacific-10 conference foe Washington. The No. 22 Huskies came into the match with a 12-5 record and a three-match win streak.
The Ducks captured the doubles point on wins by the No. 47 duo of senior Guillermo Carter and freshman Leslie Eisinga and sophomore Thomas Schneiter and freshman Oded Teig.
Schneiter and Teig continued their success in singles play. Schneiter defeated No. 86 Ari Strasberg, 6-3, 6-1. Teig won for the seventh time in eight matches with a win over Andy Posavac, 6-3, 6-2.
The Huskies then killed any hopes of an upset by winning the remaining four singles matches. Senior Joaquin Hamdan and freshman Jason Menke lost grueling, three-set matches.
“The guys had them in a battle,” head coach Chris Russell said in a released statement. “I think this is the closest we’ve come to beating Washington in a long time. It was looking favorable, but we came up just a bit short.”
Oregon falls to 9-6, and 0-3 Pac-10.
On Friday the Ducks hosted their first outdoor match of the season. They dominated Montana 7-0 to win their final nonconference match.
In doubles play, the Ducks set the tone for the match, sweeping Montana in impressive fashion.
Hamdan defeated former Oregon player Justin Lindbloom.
And Schneiter’s 6-0, 6-1 win over David Froschauer at the No. 2 position clinched the match for Oregon.
Senior Cedric Van Haver played for the first time in a dual match this season, defeating the Grizzlies’ Eric Metzger 6-1, 5-7, 6-2.
It wouldn’t look like it from the box scores, but the Oregon women’s tennis team also made significant improvements since last playing Washington and Washington State.
The Ducks traveled to Washington this weekend to conclude their Pac-10 conference season with matches against the Washington schools. Oregon got a preview of both teams in early March, when it hosted them in nonconference matchups.
Oregon was hoping for revenge against the schools after a 7-2 drubbing at the hands of the Huskies and a heartbreaking come-from behind-loss to Washington State.
Revenge was not in store though as Oregon lost to both Washington schools and fell to 6-12, and 1-7 in the Pac-10.
On Friday, Oregon took on Washington State in Pullman. At the No. 1 spot, Senior Alina Wygonowska defeated the Cougars’ Patrycja Gajdzik to start the match. Janice Nyland and freshman Jeanette Mattsson also won in singles play. The Cougars took the remaining singles matches, tying the contest at 3-3.
Doubles play, which was Oregon’s downfall in the earlier matchup, decided the match. The teams split the top two doubles, putting the burden on sophomores Adeline Arnaud and Valerie Young. The duo battled Moniek Van de Ven and Kathleen Pienaar to a 8-8 tie, setting up a tiebreaker that would decide the match. But the ball bounced Washington State’s way.
The Ducks had to put the loss behind them and travel to Seattle on Sunday to face No. 34 Washington.
Freshman Monika Geiczys and sophomore Janice Nyland led the Ducks. Nyland upended her first ranked opponent of the season, upsetting No. 88 Zuzana Stunova, 7-6, 6-1. No. 58 Geiczys disposed of Ilona Kordonskaya in three sets.
The team of Wygonowska and sophomore Adeline Arnaud defeated Kordonskaya and Stunova in doubles play. But it wasn’t enough as the Huskies won the remaining matches to win, 6-3.