University of Oregon
Pac-12 Championships
Rose, Kluiving Pick Up Wins in Ojai
04/24/15 | Women's Tennis
OJAI, Calif. – Nia Rose and Marlou Kluiving of the Oregon women's tennis team each picked up a win in the opening round of singles play at the Pac-12 Championships on Thursday at the Ojai Valley Athletic Club. Rose played in the championship bracket while Kluiving played in the invitational bracket.
How It Happened: Rose opened the singles championship bracket with a three-set thriller against Lize Leenkecht of Washington State. Leenknecht came out firing to start the match, winning 6-2, but the UO freshman was able to channel her focus and took the next two sets 6-3, 6-4 to set her up with a rematch against Arizona State's Desirae Krawczyk – the No. 6-seeded player in the tournament.
Rose and Krawczyk were matched up just two weeks ago when the then-No. 24 ranked Sun Devils visited Eugene. Rose held a 3-2 edge over the junior from ASU before she had withdrawn with an injury, giving Rose the 3-2 victory.
This time around against a healthy Krawcyzk, Rose was eliminated from the quarterfinal round of singles play by a score of 6-2, 6-1.
Alyssa Tobita and Nicole Long also played in the championship bracket, but were both bested by their opponents. Tobita, who has consistently played at the No. 2 singles position for Oregon was paired up against Catherine Harrison of UCLA who played at singles No. 4 when the Bruins visited Eugene. Tobita was unable to overcome Harrison, who is ranked No. 57, and fell 6-4, 6-2.
Long, who has had her fair share of upsets over the season, was matched up with another UCLA Bruin in No. 51 Jennifer Brady. However, Long could not orchestrate the upset and fell in straight sets to Brady 6-0, 6-1.
In the invitational bracket, Kluiving opened up the round of 32 with a battle tested win over Nastia Vasyukhina of WSU. The UO sophomore had to fight off the freshman from WSU to earn the 7-5 victory in the first set before dismantling Vasyukhina 6-1 in the second set and advanced to the round of 16.
Kluiving's win on Thursday gave her 23 singles victories on the year and bumped her up into a tie for seventh in the single-season wins category at Oregon.
In her second match of the day, Kluiving was matched up with No. 85 Gabby Smith from USC – who had dispatched Cal's Stephanie Lin earlier (6-0, 6-1). Smith, who defeated Long back in Eugene, took the first set from Kluiving 6-3. However, Kluiving found her bearings once again and nearly forced a third set when she tied things up at 5-5 but the Trojan's Smith narrowly came away with second set 7-5 and the win.
What It Means: With all four Ducks falling either in first or second round of play in both singles brackets, Oregon will turn its focus to the doubles bracket. UO's No. 60-ranked doubles pair of Rose and Tobita is slated to take on Stanford's Taylor Davison and Carol Zhao – who are the top-seeded pair in the tournament and No. 2-ranked pair in the country.
Oregon's No. 65-ranked doubles pair of Kluiving and Long will be paired up against Utah's Tereza Bekerova and Margo Pletcher – who are ranked No. 44 in doubles play.
For a complete list of results from today's matches, click here.
Up Next: Rose and Tobita will open up doubles play at 9 a.m. (PT) on Friday, April 24, against David and Zhao while Kluiving and Long will take on Bekerova and Pletcher at 10:15 a.m.
Players Mentioned
