TicketSmarter WAC Tennis Athletes of the Week Announced
DENVER – Chicago State's Pedro Alvarez and doubles team Jakov Suler and Jesus Perez Plaza and Grand Canyon doubles team Emilia Occhipinti and Autum Prudhomme have been named the TicketSmarter Western Athletic Conference Tennis Athletes of the Week for April 20 through April 26.
Alvarez, a freshman from Cagua, Venezuala, finished the week with a perfect 2-0 record to close out the regular season. On Saturday, Alvarez came back from a loss in the first set to take down Eastern Illinois' Aleksa Lazarevic. He then helped the Cougars earn the win over Saint Louis with a win over the Billikens' Eliott Ekindi (6-2,6-2).
Suler, a junior from Zagreb, Croatia, and Perez Plaza, a junior from Madrid, Spain, combined for a pair of wins last week. The tandem opened the week with a top-flight win over Ming-Chieh Chiu and Nam Pham of Illinois State. Additionally, they prevailed over Saint Louis' Ekindi and David Hopper on Sunday, winning 6-3 in their final match of the regular season.
Occhipinti, a senior from Ragusa, Italy, and Prudhomme, a senior from Glendale, Ariz., extended their winning streak to 11 matches with a win against Northern Arizona last week. The duo defeated Elinor Beazley and Gina Dittmann by a score of 7-6 on Friday.
Other men's singles nominees: Grand Canyon's Valentin Lang notched his sixth-straight victory as he came away with a 6-0, 6-2 win over NAU's Eban Straker-Meads.