‘People want it more’: A struggling women’s tennis finds hope through first-ever derby victory

Ruby Thompson fires off a serve. Photo by Sofie Szigeti.

The past decade and a half has not been kind to Willamette women’s tennis. Should results hold, 2025 marks the program’s 14th straight losing season. But according to veteran player Ruby Thompson (MBA ʼ25) and new Director of Tennis Samuel Fecteau, a light may be shining at the end of the tunnel. Much of this newfound optimism comes from a historic 4-3 win against Linfield in Salem on March 9, marking the first time in recorded conference history that Willamette downed the Wildcats. 

The win against Linfield was hard-fought even before the match began, as the Bearcats were down their number one player, Alexa de Crinis (ʼ26), to illness. Tennis, although an individual sport, is played in ranked positions. With de Crinis out, every singles player on the team had to move one rank up — thus facing a harder opponent than they had prepared for. Despite the odds, the Bearcats hung on to victory.

Some of the most decisive wins for the ʼCats in the Linfield match came from unlikely doubles pairings; again, due to the absence of their number one, all the doubles teams had to be rearranged, too — not just their singles rankings.  

First-year duo Gio Horner (’28) and Sofia Spencer (’28), who had practiced together just once before the Linfield match, narrowly won No. 2 doubles 7-6. Ruby Thompson and Marie Tarrab (ʼ26) also won No. 3 doubles 6-2. Finally, to clinch the W for the Bearcats, Horner, Thompson and Alicia Sola (ʼ26) won in No. 4, No. 5 and No. 6 singles, respectively.

For Thompson, the key to the Bearcats’ win wasn’t talent, but tactics. A way to make up for the lack of experience and chemistry between teammates due to the doubles shakeups was by playing patiently and waiting for the right opportunity to win rather than coming out aggressive. In her eyes, one of the main reasons the ‘Cats have been a struggling program for so long is a tendency to try to play at a level they simply aren’t capable of: “We used to play so much for show. And we would just lose every match for ourselves. … We got so stuck in losing repetitively for so long that we just wanted to make it look good.”

This shift in the Linfield win towards a slower, more intelligent playstyle marks a huge step forward for the program, according to Thompson. “That whole match was kind of [us] just outwaiting Linfield. … Everybody was very patient and focused on strategy, thought through their points, and literally just played a better game than Linfield did.”

Thompson gave a lot of credit to the individual improvements she saw from her returning teammates, as well as the way the first-years stepped up and performed in such an important moment. The Linfield match allowed the team to demonstrate a certainty in their own skills that just hadn’t been present in prior years: “The confidence and the energy and the talent that was on the court was just so much better from [where we were] last year.”

Thompson, at the very least, attributed this particular win to the current director of tennis, Sam Fecteau. 

Fecteau, who replaced Tyler Linscott as interim director in August 2024, officially assumed his new role in November. He had previously served as the assistant coach for the program. Discussing the transition, Fecteau said that “things have been relatively seamless. I have a great rapport with the players. I’ve really enjoyed getting to work with them.”

Willamette tennis has had one director of tennis for both the men’s and women’s teams since 2019, a feature that is not necessarily uncommon for similar programs but that comes with its own unique challenges. “Balancing two programs can be tricky, [as] making sure that everybody feels seen is really important to me,” said Fecteau. “And that can be tricky when it’s just me and generally just one other.”

For Fecteau, the small successes the team has experienced this year have more to do with the culture the players have established among themselves than anything he’s done. “I don’t know, maybe I’m just inheriting something that has developed over time. I’m not gonna sit here and say that I’ve done anything new or special. People want it more,” he reflected. 

There’s a long road ahead for women’s tennis, but Fecteau feels there’s more reason for optimism than pessimism: “There's no saying what the future is if we work hard and we kinda put our heads down and focus on our own development. We could be a program that could succeed in the future; we just have to lay the groundwork for that success.” For the whole team, Willamette’s tennis program has nothing to lose — and everything to gain.

The women’s tennis team faces Linfield at home on Sunday, April 13 at 11 a.m.