University of Oregon
Stanford
Oregon Falls to No. 2 Stanford, 6-1
02/05/12 | Women's Tennis
EUGENE, Ore. - The University of Oregon women's tennis team fell to No. 2 Stanford, 6-1, on Saturday at the Student Tennis Center. The loss drops the Ducks to 3-2 on the season and marks their first defeat at home.
"It was a tough match today," said head coach Paul Reber. "I thought we competed really well, especially at certain spots. The scores weren't an indicator of how tough the matches were."
The Ducks (3-2) fought from behind the entire dual after dropping the opening doubles point. The Cardinal (2-0) took all three matches headlined by the No.1 ranked doubles tandem of Mallory Burdette and Nicole Gibbs beating Patricia Skowronski and Sofia Hager, 8-1. Stanford's Natalie Dillon and Veronica Li defeated Haley Driver and Rabea Stueckemann, 8-3, while the Cardinal's Stacey Tan and Ellen Tsay beat out Trudie du Toit and Julia Metzger, 8-5.
The singles portion of the dual evolved into an one-sided manner with Tan and Li defeating Hager and Driver 6-0, 6-0, respectively. The Oregon freshmen weren't the only Ducks who fell on a day that saw the No. 2 team in the nation clicking on all cylinders. The No.1 singles player in the country, Burdette, defeated Skowronski ,6-3, 6-3 while the No. 5 singles player in the country, Gibbs, took down Metzger, 6-1, 6-0.
The Ducks didn't go down without a battle and received the best efforts from du Toit and Stueckemann. Du Toit made headway in the first set before falling back towards the end losing to Tsay 6-4, 6-1. At No. 6 singles, Stueckemann had the lone break through for Oregon. The Hamm, Germany native defeated Dillon 6-3, 3-6, 1-0 (10-8) in a third set tiebreaker.
"A lot of credit to Rabea for stepping up and winning her first set and then battling to win the third set breaker for the point," said coach Reber. "Although our No. 2 doubles came up short, I thought Julia (Metzger) and Trudie (du Toit) played with a lot of energy and were right there until the end of the match."
The Oregon women will have a chance to put this loss in the rearview mirror by taking on Portland State tomorrow at noon from the Student Tennis Center. The match against the Vikings will be there last match before a 12-day break from competition.
"We need to make sure we're ready to play Portland State tomorrow before we go into an off weekend."
Players Mentioned
