Tulsa Sweeps C-USA Tennis Players of the Week Awards
3/31/2009 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
March 31, 2009
Irving, Texas - Tulsa's Arnau Brugues and Alexandra Kichoutkin won the Conference USA Men's and Women's Tennis Players of the Week awards as announced today by the league office. Brugues wins the award for the fifth time this season and for the 12th time in his career, and Kichoutkin claims her second weekly honor of the season and fifth of her career.
The 12 career honors for Brugues are second all-time for a C-USA men's tennis player (13 - Michael Kogan, Tulane) and are the fifth-most among all C-USA sports.
Senior Arnau Brugues, the second-ranked singles player in the nation, helped guide the 29th-ranked Tulsa men's tennis team to a 3-0 record last week with victories over IPFW, Western Illinois and 19th-ranked Louisville. Brugues went 2-0 in No. 1 singles earning a 6-0, 6-0, win over Zach Frisch of Western Illinois and a 6-0, 6-2, victory against 40th-ranked Austen Childs of Louisville. The Barcelona, Spain, native owns a 34-3 singles record on the season, including 20 wins against nationally-ranked opponents.
The three-time All-American also went 3-0 in No. 3 doubles, picking up an 8-1 win over Cameron Braun and Rodrigo Tamashiro of IPFW with partner Rusty Turpin. He also won 8-4 over Neil Lesinki and Sean Ragee-Nelson of Western Illinois, and 8-3 against Robert Hall and Robert Rotaru of Louisville with partner Marko Ballok.
Sophomore Alexandra Kichoutkin shares her second award of the season with SMU's Kseniia Tokarieva after both helped lead their teams to perfect records last week. Kichoutkin helped the 42nd-ranked Tulsa women's tennis team to a 3-0 record last week with wins over then 27th-ranked Texas, Rice and Houston. Kichoutkin went 3-0 in No. 1 singles claiming a 7-5, 6-3, win against Caroline Larsson of Texas, a 1-6, 7-6, 6-0, win over Julie Chao of Rice and a 6-1, 6-0, victory against Lynley Wasson of Houston. She owns a 22-9 singles record on the season.
Kichoutkin also went 2-1 in doubles earning a pair of wins in the No. 3 position with partner Rebecca Row. The duo defeated Amanda Craddock and Sarah Lancaster of Texas, 8-6, and Houston's Laura Ring and Vicky Simpson, 8-6.
Both the men's and women's tennis teams are back in action this week, with the women's team playing 66th-ranked Nebraska at 1:00 p.m. on Wednesday, April 1, at the Michael D. Case Tennis Center. The men's team plays on Wednesday as well when they travel to Texas A&M to take on the 14th-ranked Aggies at 2:00 p.m. in College Station, Texas.
