No. 65 Oregon women’s tennis (11-11, 2-8 Big Ten) extended its losing streak to six matches with a 4-1 loss to the No. 31 Wisconsin Badgers (14-5, 7-3 Big Ten). Despite what the final score suggests, the Ducks were never out of it. Five out of Oregon’s six singles players got within two games in at least one set with four of them battling from behind.

“The Big Ten is a really strong conference,” Patsy Daughters said. “All we can do is try every match, and you never know when we can pull an upset.”

Wisconsin got on the board first, winning doubles 2-0. Tilde Jagare and Olivia Symons’ match started out close with each side trading games, but their opponents eventually pulled ahead, winning 6-2. Hinata Furutani and Juliet Santitto went back and forth with their opponents, but their match would not be finished. Virginia Crocker and Bridget Mihulka fell behind early in their match and couldn’t battle back, losing 6-3 as Wisconsin claimed the doubles point.

The Badgers still held the advantage in singles, but the Ducks were not backing away.

Symons was matched against the No. 60 singles player in the country in Ekaterina Ivanova and embraced the challenge from the opening serve. She was never able to extend her lead more than a game, but never trailed until it was 4-3. Even then, Symons still tied it one more time, but Ivanova won the next two to take the first set 6-4. 

Symons got on the board first in the second set. She held onto another one-game lead for the majority of the second set. Neither Symons nor Ivanova ever gave in and they nearly went to a tiebreaker, but the match was called with Symons leading 6-5.

“I saw that she was competing,” Daughters said. “You can hear people celebrating and that energy really helps everyone across the courts. I could tell she was gonna come back and win that match.”

Crocker fell behind to start her first set and trailed 5-0 before finally getting on the board, but it was too late to mount a comeback as she dropped the first set 6-1. She fell behind again in her second set and lost 6-1 to conclude her match.

Furutani’s first set started out close, but gradually got away from her as she lost 6-2. She kept it a lot closer in the second set, but fell short 6-4 to end her match.

Santitto had a small lead early that she extended over the course of the first set, winning 6-2. Her opponent kept it much closer in the second set, but Santitto rose above to win 6-3 and give the Ducks their only point of the match.

Daughters was down 5-2 in her first set, but battled all the way back to tie it before winning 7-5. She had the advantage from the start in the second set and was leading 5-2 when the match was called.

“I knew that I had the level and I was just making a few mistakes here and there,” Daughters said. “I tried to really focus and be positive, because I’ve been in a lot of situations like that this year where I’ve been down and come back. I tried to think about those times and then it kind of just happened.”

Jagare won her first game against Maria Sholokhova, the No. 19 singles player in the country, before Sholokhova went on a 5-0 run. Jagare battled back from there and nearly tied it, but fell short 6-4. The second set was another tight one, but Jagare fell short once again 6-4 as the Badgers claimed the match.

The Ducks will celebrate Senior Day at their final home match of the season April 12, when they host the Minnesota Golden Gophers at 10 a.m.