Complete Releases in PDF Format: Men / Women
WAC PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
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.
CHICAGO STATE
Chicago State women's tennis team opened Western Athletic Conference play this weekend with a pair of matches here at the Paseo Tennis Center during the first WAC cluster of the season. The Cougars fell to host Grand Canyon and the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley by identical 7-0 scores.
GRAND CANYON
The Grand Canyon women's tennis team began its 2015 Western Athletic Conference title defense at home with three conference matches beginning on Friday against Chicago State. The Lopes made a statement in their first conference match sweeping the Cougars 7-0, improving to 6-7 this season. The GCU women's tennis team suffered a tough loss against WAC conference rival New Mexico State on Saturday afternoon. The Lopes were defeated 4-3 after splitting singles matches but losing the doubles competition point to the Aggies. Grand Canyon falls to 6-8 for the season. After a disappointing loss to league-leading New Mexico State on Saturday, the GCU women's tennis team rebounded to defeat Seattle 6-1 on Sunday morning. The Lopes nearly swept the contest and improve their record to 7-8 overall.
MISSOURI-KANSAS CITY
The UMKC men's tennis squad continued to roll on Saturday afternoon, taking a 6-1 victory on the road at Creighton of the Big East Conference. It was the third straight win for the Roos. UMKC women's tennis got a third set singles win from Marina Albert to clinch a 4-3 come-from-behind WAC opening victory for the Roos on Saturday afternoon in Phoenix against SeattleU. The UMKC women's tennis squad jumped out with an early lead, but UTRGV came back in singles play to take a 5-2 victory on the final day of the first WAC cluster.
SEATTLE U
The Redhawks closed a five-match home stand with a five-match win streak heading into conference play next weekend, earning a 6-1 win over Montana State on Mar. 16 … Connor Leahy has now won 9 of his last 10 singles matches and is on a 10-match doubles winning streak with partner John Stormans … Michael Schoettler has now won seven straight singles matches. Coming down to the final singles match to finish, Seattle University women's tennis (8-8, 0-1 WAC) tied the score late but UMKC (5-9, 1-0 WAC) would come back to earn a 4-3 victory to open Western Athletic Conference action. They avoided the shutout with a win in the final singles match but ultimately fell to host Grand Canyon (7-8, 2-1 WAC), 6-1, to close the first weekend of Western Athletic Conference play.
NM STATE
Men - Playing with an injury-ridden team, NM State went 2-1 at the Mountain Pacific Invitational. Women - With the match coming down to Erika Castillo Lopez on court No. 4, the senior rose to the challenge and defeated UT Rio Grande Valley's Natacha Minc in three sets to give the NM State women's tennis team the win in its Western Athletic Conference opener - 4-3. Freshman Eli Arnaudova recorded her first singles victory in Western Athletic Conference play Saturday afternoon to give the NM State women's tennis team a 4-3 win over Grand Canyon.
UT RIO GRANDE VALLEY
The Vaqueros went 1-3 on their spring break trip as they played four matches in six days. Their lone win came over Nicholls State as they fell to No. 33 Rice, New Orleans and Lipscomb over the weekend. The Vaqueros get their first taste of conference competition when they head to Las Cruces for the first WAC Cluster of the season this weekend. The Vaqueros went 2-1 in the first WAC Cluster of the season and are now 5-5 on the season. After falling to New Mexico State in their first match of the weekend, they picked up wins over Chicago State and Missouri-Kansas City. Freshmen lead the way for the Vaqueros as Doris Aleksovska, Tara Donaho and Dominique Ibarra each posted six or more singles victories this season. Donaho leads the team with eight singles victories. The Vaqueros have one match next weekend as they head to Austin to face the University of Central Arkansas in a neutral site match.
WAC ANNOUNCES PRE-CONFERENCE MEN'S TENNIS COACHES POLL
The Western Athletic Conference announced its men's tennis pre-conference coaches polls, as voted on by the six head coaches in the league. Grand Canyon was selected as the pre-season favorite.
Grand Canyon was picked as the favorite with four first-place votes and 24 points overall. NM State captured second place with 21 points and two first-place votes. Right behind the Aggies is UT Rio Grande Valley with 16 points. Missouri-Kansas City with 15 points and Seattle U with 9 points grab the fourth and fifth spots and Chicago State rounds out the poll with five points.
The 2016 Western Athletic Conference Tennis championships will be hosted by UT Rio Grande Valley and will take place in Brownsville, Texas, April 29-May 1.
2016 Pre-Season Men's Tennis Coaches Poll
Rank Team (1st - Place Votes) Points
1 Grand Canyon (4) 24
2 NM State (2) 21
3 UT Rio Grande Valley 16
4 Missouri-Kansas City 15
5 Seattle U 9
6 Chicago State 5
WAC ANNOUNCES PRE-CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TENNIS COACHES POLL
The Western Athletic Conference announced its women's tennis pre-season coaches polls, as voted on by the six head coaches in the league. Grand Canyon and NM State were selected as the pre-season favorites.
Grand Canyon and NM State tied as the favorite to win the conference championship with three first-place votes and 23 total points. Missouri-Kansas City, Seattle U and UT Rio Grande Valley were close behind, earning 13 points each. Chicago State rounds out the poll in sixth place with five points.
The 2016 Western Athletic Conference Tennis championships will be hosted by UT Rio Grande Valley and will take place in Brownsville, Texas, April 29-May 1.
2016 Pre-Season Women's Tennis Coaches Poll
Rank Team (1st - Place Votes) Points
T-1 Grand Canyon (3) 23
T-1 NM State (3) 23
T-3 Missouri-Kansas City 13
T-3 Seattle U 13
T-3 UT Rio Grande Valley 13
6 Chicago State 5
WAC CHAMPIONSHIP
The 2016 WAC Tennis Championship travels to Brownsville, Texas from April 29th to May 1st. This year's championships will be hosted by Texas Rio Grand Valley. The New Mexico State men will look to repeat a WAC title. The Grand Canyon women won the regular season while New Mexico State won the tournament last season.
April 29-May 1
Location: Brownsville, Texas
Host: Texas Rio Grande Valley
Admission: Free
2016 USTA/ITA REGIONALS
The USTA/ITA Regional Championships will feature some of the top men's and women's players across the country. Over 8,000 student-athletes from NCAA Division I, II, III, NAIA, Junior and Community Colleges compete across 85 USTA/ITA Regional Championships around the country.
Region/Host
Midwest: Notre Dame
Mountain: New Mexico
Northeast: Yale
South: Alabama
Central: Arkansas
Southeast: Florida
Northwest: Washington
NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS - The 2016 Tennis National Championships will take place in Tulsa, Oklahoma at the Michael D. Case Tennis Center. Tulsa will be the host May 19-30.
May 19-30
Location: Tulsa, Okla.
Host: Tulsa
Admission: Free