Oregon tennis has been playing the role of the favorite for long enough. It is time for the Ducks to be the underdogs.
The No. 37 women, coming off a 5-2 victory over then-No. 44 Washington St., will battle No. 4 Cal on Saturday and No. 3 Stanford on Sunday at home.
The No. 65 men will look to continue their six-match winning streak against No. 10 Washington on Friday and No. 55 Purdue on Sunday.
“Washington is the only the team we play twice a year,” head coach Chris Russell said. “So they know a lot about us. It should be a hard-fought match.”
The Ducks will take No. 79 Oded Teig into Washington to face No. 8 Alex Vlaski, No. 14 Matt Hanlin and No. 116 Pete Scharler. Duck sophomore Manuel Kost slipped from the rankings this week because of an abdominal injury earlier in the season, but is currently 5-1 in the dual season.
The No. 15 doubles team of Teig and Sven Swinnen will take on No. 55 Vlasik and Ari Strasberg.
“This will be the most hostile environment we will play in,” Russell said. “That’s what college tennis is all about.”
The 4-2 Boilermakers bring the No. 53 doubles team of Troy Havens and Scott Mayer to take on Teig and Swinnen, who are looking to improve on their record of 7-1.
“We’ve never seen Purdue before,” Russell said. “But it looks like we match up well against them.”
The women are looking to cap off what has already been a successful week. The teams landed three singles players and two doubles teams in the national rankings and notched victories over two of the most prestigious programs in the country.
“Cal and Stanford are two quality teams,” head coach Nils Schyllander said. “We are going into this match with the same attitiude and look to continue playing well.”
No. 16 Daria Panova, playing the No. 1 spot for the Ducks, will most likely take on No. 13 Raquel Kops-Jones of Cal and No. 5 Alice Barnes of Stanford on Sunday. Fellow ranked Ducks, No. 52 Courtney Nagle and No. 89 Monika Geiczys, will battle No. 10 Amber Liu and No. 26 Lauren Barnikow from Stanford as well as No. 45 Christina Fusano from Cal.
Along with their highly ranked singles players, the Ducks will call on the doubles teams of No. 38 Nagle/Panova and No. 44 Geiczys/Julie Merle to face No. 1 Barnikow/Erin Burdette of Stanford and Cal’s duo of Kops-Jones/Fusano, ranked No. 11 nationally.
“We try to take things one weekend at a time,” Schyllander said. “And we are very confident this weekend.”
The women play at noon Saturday and 11 a.m. Sunday at the Student Tennis Center.