Winning the doubles point and taking singles matches at the top and bottom spots weren’t enough for the No. 35 Oregon women’s tennis team to upset No. 21 Washington this weekend.
The Ducks fell to the Huskies, 4-3, on Saturday despite sweeping the doubles matches.
“It was definitely the best doubles we have played all year,” head coach Nils Schyllander said. “That was really good to see.”
Leading the way for the Ducks was the No. 28 duo of Courtney Nagle/Daria Panova and their upset of No. 9 Claire Carter/Darija Klaic. Senior captain Monika Gieczys and freshman Jamie Marshall also teamed up to take their match, 8-4, and clinch the doubles point.
Ducks Ester Bak and Anna Leksinska completed the sweep with an 8-6 victory from the No. 3 spot.
No. 18 Panova rebounded from two losses last weekend to take No. 36 Carter in three sets and freshman Leksinska won her match from the No. 6 singles spot by taking a 10-8 tie-breaker in the last set.
The Ducks were unable to win the fourth point as Marshall was forced to retire due to injury and No. 40 Nagle and Gieczys fell to the 87 and 95 ranked players in the nation.
Marshall’s injury comes as a big blow to the already injury-plagued Ducks. Freshman Julie Merle has not played competitively in almost a month and junior Davina Mendiburu is out for the season with a torn anterior cruciate ligament.
The Ducks dropped to 9-8 on the season as they continued a five-game skid in Pacific-10 Conference play, while the Huskies improved to 10-1.
“We played a very good match today,” Schyllander said on Saturday. “We were right there, and hopefully we’ll come out on top tomorrow.”
The Ducks faced Washington State in Pullman on Sunday. Results were not available at press time.