Azkara, Huang Take Weekly MW Honors
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Arda Azkara is going to run out of wall space, and the UNM women’s tennis team continues to do things never seen in program history. For the fourth time this season, the eighth time in two years, and the ninth time in his career, Arda Azkara has been named the Mountain West Player of the Week, and the women’s tennis team made it three straight weeks with a MW Player of the Week honor, which had never happened in program history, as Hsuan Huang became the third player in three straight weeks to earn the honor.
On the men’s side, only San Diego State’s Oliver Maiberger, who won 12 awards from 2000-03, has won more than Azkara. On the women’s side, UNM has never won three straight MW Player of the Week awards, as last week UNM went back-to-back for the first time since 2016.
Azkara, who was also Player of the Week on January 24, March 6, and March 20, had to work for this one. In his only match of the week, he keyed UNM’s wild come-from-behind 4-3 win over No. 67 Utah State. With his team down 3-2, Azkara fought off two match points in a third-set tiebreaker.
Down 4-1 in the tiebreaker to Bodin Zarkovic, Azkara eventually trailed 6-4, facing two match points that would have not only lost the match to Utah State but would have been his first career home loss at No. 1 singles. Instead, he slammed a winner down the line to make it 6-5, and then he hit an ace on his second serve to tie the match, eventually winning on a passing shot for an 8-6 win.
The win moved his career home record to 23-0 at No. 1 singles. His win tied the match at 3-3, and UNM won the nearly four-hour match about 40 minutes later when teammate Rafael Abdulsalam won a come-from-behind three-set match of his own.
Overall, UNM has won six MW Player of the Week awards this season (Azkara four, Aram Noroozian and Arthur Bellegy one each) and three Freshman of the Week awards (Avery Tallakson two, Nicolas Recoura one). UNM travels to take on Nevada on Friday and San Diego State on Sunday.
Hsuan Huang became the third player in three straight weeks to earn Mountain West Player of the Week honors for UNM, following Katherine Jhang and Leonie Hoppe, who won the awards in back-to-back weeks. It is the first time in the history of UNM’s time in the Mountain West that three straight Lobos have been named Player of the Week. It’s the most Mountain West Players of the Week in a single season for the Lobos since 2004 when Iva Gersic won it twice and Tiffany Robertson, Maya Kovacek, and Michelle Heidbrink won it once each for a total of five in 2004.
Huang went 4-0 on the week, clinching the doubles point in both of UNM’s wins, a 4-2 road win at Boise State and a 4-0 road win at Utah State.
Against Boise State playing at No. 3, she keyed UNM’s comeback from down 2-1 with a 4-6, 6-1, 6-3 over Joana Baptista. Against Utah State, she made it a 3-0 lead with a 7-6 (7-3), 6-4 win over Lisa Kung. Both of those wins were at No. 3 singles.
The Lobos, 16-1 overall and 5-0 in the Mountain West, host Nevada on Friday at noon and No. 65 San Diego State on Sunday.