BOUTILLIER NAMED WAC PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Fresno State's Remi Boutillier has been named the Verizon Western Athletic Conference Tennis Player of the Week for Feb. 7-13.
Boutillier, a junior from Briancon, France (Externat Notre Dame), went undefeated in singles and doubles in matches during the week, helping his team to victories over Loyola Marymount, 6-1, and Pacific, 7-0. Playing in the No. 1 singles position, Boutillier defeated Loyola Marymount's Aris Andreasian in straight sets, 6-4, 6-1. In doubles, he paired with teammate Francis Alcatara at No. 1 to defeat Loyola Marymount's duo of Daniel Simko and Nicholas Bjerke, 8-6. Boutillier didn't let up against Pacific on the following day as he defeated Tomasz Krzyszkowski at the No. 2 spot in singles, 6-2, 6-3. Boutillier paired with Rikus de Villiers to defeat Pacific's No. 1 duo of Ivan Castro and Alex Golding, 8-2, as well.
Other male nominees included: Jeff Mullen, Boise State; Lachlan Reed, Idaho; Jakob Asplund, Utah State.
WAC IN THE NATIONAL RANKINGS
In the Feb. 14 ITA rankings, four of the seven WAC teams are ranked in the top 60. Fresno State is the highest ranked WAC team at No. 31, Boise State comes in at No. 36, Hawai'i is at No. 42 and New Mexico State is No. 58
Individually, the WAC has three singles players ranked in the top 100. Arthur Surreaux of New Mexico State is the top-ranked WAC player at No. 75, Rikus de Villiers of Fresno State is next at No. 83, and Remi Boutillier of Fresno State comes in at No. 89.
In doubles, the WAC has two teams ranked in the top 75. Fresno State's pairing of Rikus de Villiers and Remi Boutillier are the No. 29 duo and Bryan Marchant and Sven Poslusny of Utah State are ranked at No. 65.
BOISE STATE DROP TWO MATCHES
The Broncos fell to No. 20 Pepperdine, 6-1, and to No. 6 UCLA, 7-0, this past weekend, facing both teams on the road. Boise State falls to 2-5 on the season, having faced a top-30 opponent in all seven matches thus far in the early going. Jeff Mullen scored the only singles win in the Broncos match against Pepperdine as he beat Alfredo Moreno, 6-4, 1-6, 7-6, at No. 4.
Against UCLA, Mullen and teammate Nathan Sereke scored the only victory for the Broncos in the match as they defeated the Bruins duo of Holden Seguso and Adrien Puget, 8-5, at No. 2.
FRESNO STATE IMPORVES ON WINNING RECORD
The No. 30 ranked Bulldogs defeated both Loyola Marymount, 6-1, and Pacific, 7-0, Feb. 11-12 in Fresno, Calif. Fresno State mixed up its doubles teams against Loyola Marymount as Rikus de Villiers and Jean-Charles Diame paired up for the first time, defeating LMU's Tyler Gottshall and Jack Zapala, 8-4. The Bulldogs also dominated in singles as they brought in victories on courts one through five.
Fresno State completely dominated Pacific as the Bulldogs swept all doubles and singles matches against the Waves.
IDAHO SPLITS MATCHES IN MONTANA
The Vandals lost a tough match to Montana, 3-4, but redeemed themselves against Montana State as Idaho claimed the victory, 6-1. Idaho won the doubles point against Montana, as the Vandals took two of the three matches, but Idaho couldn't hold on in singles, as Montana took the match. Idaho faced Montana State later that day, once again taking the double point, and this time taking five of the six singles matches to claim the victory.
NEW MEXICO STATE SWEEPS ITS COLORADO ROAD TRIP
The Aggies wrapped up their weekend in Colorado with wins over No. 40 Denver on Feb. 12, and Air Force on Feb. 13. The two wins put the Aggies at .500 after a slow start to the season. The Aggies defeated Denver, 4-3, as senior Arthur Surreaux provided the spark with a sweep over No. 25 ranked Enej Bonin, 6-2, 7-5.
In the Aggies 5-2 victory over Air Force, senior Jim Brouleau highlighted with a dominating victory over the Falcons' Andy Jackson, 6-0, 6-3, at No. 2.
UTAH STATE SPLITS IN LAS VEGAS
Utah State split matches while in Las Vegas, Nev., losing to UNLV, 1-6, and defeating UC Riverside, 6-1. The lone point of the Aggies match against UNLV came in the No. 2 position in singles play, as senior Jakob Asplund defeated Tamas Batyi due to Batyi being forced to retire during the first set of the match.
The Aggies bounced back against UC Riverside as they swept the doubles matchups and lost only one singles match at the No. 3 position.
WAC TOURNAMENT TO BE HELD IN BOISE
The 2011 WAC Tennis Tournament will be held April 29-May 1 in Boise, Idaho. Hawai'i, winners of three-straight WAC Tournament titles, defeated No. 2-seed Fresno State, 4-3 in last year's tournament.