Malea Diehn has made huge gains for Mayo tennis team
Aug. 20—ROCHESTER — This is a different Malea Diehn.
Stronger, quicker and balls coming off her racquet at speeds that weren't seen from the Mayo junior in years past.
This is a girl with a real shot at winning a state Class 2A championship.
The 5-foot-11 angular and smooth junior wasn't at her very best on Wednesday morning as she took on fellow top-three-in-the-state player Cassandra Li of Eagan.
"I didn't finish enough shots," said Diehn, who admired Li's backhand and an overall game that produced few mistakes. "My consistency could have been better."
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.
That wasn't enough to get past Li, who prevailed 7-5, 6-2. But it was certainly attention getting.
"She's hitting the ball 5 to 10 miles per hour faster than she was last year," 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. "Her consistency has gotten better and she is stronger, hitting a bigger ball."
It wasn't by accident that Diehn upped her game. She's been going at it on a regular basis, crafting her tennis year-round into that of a state top-three individual power.
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.
"That is really, really impressive," Demaray said. "You don't usually see that at the higher levels in one year, to improve by two points. She has improved immensely. She's played a lot of tennis, including national tournaments."
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.
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.
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.
Those placements were easy at the time for Demaray.
"There was a pretty big gap between me and Aoife," Diehn said.
But now?
"I think we've slowly kind of closed that gap," Diehn said. "I'm not sure who's better."
They'll find out Monday, when the two square off in a challenge match, the winner assuming the No. 1 spot. If they split sets, they'll trade off at No. 1 singles.
Diehn isn't worried about it. She is just glad that Loftus is on Mayo's side, as one of the top players in the state and a close friend.
Loftus makes Diehn better and vice versa. They love it like that.
"I mean, we play a lot of USTA tennis together, too, so we kind of push each other," Diehn said. "We're also good friends and doubles partners. So it's really cool to have someone like that on my team."
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.
