{"id":99370,"date":"2025-08-21T13:08:22","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T13:08:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/99370\/"},"modified":"2025-08-21T13:08:22","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T13:08:22","slug":"malea-diehn-has-made-huge-gains-for-mayo-tennis-team-post-bulletin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/99370\/","title":{"rendered":"Malea Diehn has made huge gains for Mayo tennis team – Post Bulletin"},"content":{"rendered":"

ROCHESTER \u2014 This is a different Malea Diehn.<\/p>\n

Stronger, quicker and balls coming off her racquet at speeds that weren\u2019t seen from the Mayo junior in years past.<\/p>\n

This is a girl with a real shot at winning a state Class 2A championship.<\/p>\n

The 5-foot-11 angular and smooth junior wasn\u2019t at her very best on Wednesday morning as she took on fellow top-three-in-the-state player Cassandra Li of Eagan.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t finish enough shots,\u201d said Diehn, who admired Li\u2019s backhand and an overall game that produced few mistakes. \u201cMy consistency could have been better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, despite some unforced errors in the two-set match by Diehn, she did reveal strokes that would be the envy of just about any high school player. They were so clean and so powerful.<\/p>\n

That wasn\u2019t enough to get past Li, who prevailed 7-5, 6-2. But it was certainly attention getting.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s hitting the ball 5 to 10 miles per hour faster than she was last year,\u201d said Mayo coach Jeff Demaray, who watched his two-time state defending champion Spartans win their 51st straight dual, beating Eagan 6-1 at the Mayo courts. \u201cHer consistency has gotten better and she is stronger, hitting a bigger ball.\u201d<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t by accident that Diehn upped her game. She\u2019s been going at it on a regular basis, crafting her tennis year-round into that of a state top-three individual power.<\/p>\n

All of that practice has allowed her to bump her game by two UTR points in the last year, the development measuring scale used for USTA players.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is really, really impressive,\u201d Demaray said. \u201cYou don\u2019t usually see that at the higher levels in one year, to improve by two points. She has improved immensely. She\u2019s played a lot of tennis, including national tournaments.\u201d<\/p>\n

The latter was new for Diehn, and a blast. She did much of it with Mayo teammate and fellow junior Aoife Loftus, who is also considered a top-three-in-the-state player. They joined each other as doubles partners and for knocking around the tournament sites of Alabama and California.<\/p>\n

Loftus was not part of the picture Wednesday, but will rejoin the team Saturday. Demaray and the Spartans have a wonderful dilemma on their hands, trying to figure out who should play No. 1 singles for them, Loftus or Diehn.<\/p>\n

The previous two years it was Claire Loftus at the top spot, the 2025 graduate making her status obvious by winning back-to-back state individual singles championships. Younger sister Aoife was at No. 2 singles those years and Diehn at No. 3.<\/p>\n

Those placements were easy at the time for Demaray.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a pretty big gap between me and Aoife,\u201d Diehn said.<\/p>\n

But now?<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ve slowly kind of closed that gap,\u201d Diehn said. \u201cI\u2019m not sure who\u2019s better.\u201d<\/p>\n

They\u2019ll find out Monday, when the two square off in a challenge match, the winner assuming the No. 1 spot. If they split sets, they\u2019ll trade off at No. 1 singles.<\/p>\n

Diehn isn\u2019t worried about it. She is just glad that Loftus is on Mayo\u2019s side, as one of the top players in the state and a close friend.<\/p>\n

Loftus makes Diehn better and vice versa. They love it like that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, we play a lot of USTA tennis together, too, so we kind of push each other,\u201d Diehn said. \u201cWe\u2019re also good friends and doubles partners. So it\u2019s really cool to have someone like that on my team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mayo 6, Eagan 1
Singles: Cassandra Li (E) def. Malea Diehn 7-5, 6-2; Ana Medina (M) def. Amelia Johnson 6-1, 6-1; Eliana Elder (M) def. Brynn Gleason 6-0, 6-1; Emily Loftus (M) def. Isabella Ruiz 6-2, 6-0. Doubles: Grace Pickering\/Isla Huebner (M) def. Sritha Palagiri\/Katherine Poppinga 6-3, 6-2; Eden Bendel\/Annabelle Camp (M) def. Evelyn Wells\/Maya Deminov 6-1, 6-2; Mia Zoghby\/Lauren Kim (M) def. Lauren Yan\/Eleanor Kim 6-2, 6-1.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Pat<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Pat has been a Post Bulletin sports reporter since 1994. He covers Rochester John Marshall football, as well as a variety of other southeastern Minnesota football teams. Among my other southeastern Minnesota high school beats are girls basketball, boys and girls tennis, boys and girls track and field, high school and American Legion baseball, volleyball, University of Minnesota sports (on occasion) and the Timberwolves (on occasion). Readers can reach Pat at 507-285-7723 or pruff@postbulletin.com.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ROCHESTER \u2014 This is a different Malea Diehn. Stronger, quicker and balls coming off her racquet at speeds…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99371,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-99370","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}