DENVER - Missouri-Kansas City's Airam Castellano and NM State's Rimpledeep Kaur have been named Western Athletic Conference Tennis Players of the Week, respectively, for March 14-20.
Castellano, a sophomore from Gran Canaria, Spain (IES Perez Galdos) helped UMKC defeat Big East Conference member Creighton by a 6-1 score on the road Saturday afternoon, winning both his singles and doubles matches. He and partner Mike Psarros took a 6-3 win at the No. 1 position over Quinn Dippel and Alex Koca as the Roos swept the doubles point. He followed with a straight set victory at No. 1 singles over Dippel, 6-3, 6-4. UMKC has now won three straight duals overall. Castellano co-leads the team with 17 singles and 15 doubles wins so far this season, and has won three in a row in each. He is also two singles wins from tying the school record for wins in a season.
Kaur, a sophomore from Jassowal, India (Harvest International School & Tennis Academy) won all three matches in singles action, including a dominant performance in her two Western Athletic Conference matches as the sophomore allowed just two points combined in those two matches while playing at the No. 2 slot. She first bested Dominique Esparza from UTRGV 6-1, 6-1, before picking up a win over Grand Canyon's Alex Petrzalkova. Kaur suffered her only loss of the weekend in doubles action against GCU's duo 6-4. Kaur has now won five of her last six singles matches and two of her last three in doubles play. She also leads New Mexico State in dual play with a 6-3 record. With the wins, NM State is now 2-0 in conference play.
Other men's nominees: NM State's Strahinja Trecakov helped guide NM State to its third-straight win last Friday when the Aggies defeated UT-Permian Basin 6-1 at home. The senior opened up singles play for New Mexico State with a 6-4, 6-3 win at the No. 1 singles slot after teaming up with sophomore Christofer Goncalves to down their foes 6-1 at the No. 1 doubles position. The win in singles play gave the senior his 12th victory of the season and third in dual play. Seattle U's Connor Leahy has now won 9 of his last 10 singles matches and is on a 10-match doubles win streak with partner John Stormanas. UT Rio Grande Valley's Elliot Johnstone went 4-3 in his matches last week as he posted two singles victories and two doubles victories. Johnstone picked up a 6-3, 6-4 win over New Orleans' Luis Albuquerque at the No. 4 spot and then closed out his weekend with a 7-6, 6-2 win over Lipscomb's Thais Minet at the No. 5 spot. With the two singles victories, Johnstone is second on the team with a 9-5 record, which surpasses his wins total from last season. In doubles, Johnstone teamed with Andres Hernandez to pick up a pair of wins as they defeated Nicholls State's Max Sinn and Bernard Wezeman 7-6 and then they closed out the weekend with a 7-5 win over Lipscomb's Thais Minet and Philippe Courteau.
Other women's nominees: Grand Canyon's Tatum Prudhomme is now 3-0 in singles this year at No. 1 and 2-1 in doubles this year at No. 1 in WAC play. Missouri-Kansas City's Marina Albert had a perfect weekend to open WAC play, going 2-0 in both singles and doubles, while helping the Roos to a 1-1 record. In a win against Seattle, she took a three-set victory over Madison Maloney in singles at No. 3, while teaming with Linda Ammar Mouhoub to tally a 6-3 doubles victory at No. 3. The duo also picked up a win over UTRGV on Sunday in doubles, making it four straight doubles wins for the pair. She capped off the weekend with a 7-6 (4), 6-3 win at No. 3 singles against the Vaqueros' Dominique Ibarra. UT Rio Grande Valley's Tara Donaho went 3-0 in singles and 2-1 in doubles over the weekend and now leads the team with an 8-2 singles record. Donaho opened the conference weekend by defeating New Mexico State's Eli Arnaudova 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 on Friday. She then followed that with a 6-0, 6-2 win over Chicago State's Bryttish Burts on Saturday and then closed out her weekend with a 7-5, 6-1 win over UMKC's Allie Schulte to push her singles match win streak to six in a row. In doubles, Donaho teamed with Reegan Greenwood to pick up a pair of victories as they defeated Chicago State's Marnie Perez-Ochoa and Monica Pulgar 6-3 and then UMKC's Raquel Argenal and Allie Schulte 7-5. Donaho and Greenwood have posted a 3-1 team record on the season.