The University of Memphis men's and women's tennis teams eachgrabbed a Conference USA Tennis Player of the Week honor Tuesday.Senior Monica Gonzalez-Gordo (Barcelona, Spain) grabbed the weeklyhonor for the women, while senior Ben Stapp (Sydney, Australia)shared the men's honor with Tulane's Michael Kogan.
Gonzalez-Gordo, a third team all-conference honoree last seasonin her first as a Lady Tiger, went 4-0 last week, while helpingMemphis to four straight wins. The Barcelona, Spain native pickedup three singles wins at No. 2 and one at No. 1 to extend the LadyTiger win streak to five matches. The four wins improved hersingles record to 12-5 for the season and to 11-5 at the No. 2singles slot.
Gonzalez-Gordo also teamed with doubles partner SabrinaLindemann (Linz, Austria) to go a perfect 4-0 at No. 1 doubles lastweekend. The duo, which was the first-ever doubles team to earn anational ranking in Memphis history, is now 10-6 for the season atNo. 1 doubles.
This is the fourth C-USA honor Gonzalez-Gordo has earned in hersecond year at Memphis. She was named the league's player of theweek once last season (3/26/01) and the player of the month earlierthis fall (October 2002) in addition to her all-conference honorlast year.
On the men's side, Stapp earned his second weekly honor of theseason and the third of his career after going 2-1 in singles and3-0 at No.1 doubles in three Tiger wins last weekend. Stapp's onlysingles loss came at No. 1 to Troy State's Pablo Martinez, the 79thranked player in the country, 6-4, 6-4. The two wins improves hissingles record to 10-4 overall and the Sydney, Australia native haswon six of his last seven singles matches.
Stapp and doubles partner Lee Taylor Walker (Jackson, Tenn.)improved to 10-4 at No. 1 singles with three victories over theweekend. The men's tennis team improved to 9-6 on the season withthe three home wins, including a 4-3 win over No. 61 MiddleTennessee. That Sunday win marked the first time in Head Coach PhilChamberlain's history that the Tigers have beaten the Blue Raiders,a team that has appeared in six NCAA tournaments.
The men's team will host one non-conference match at home thisweekend when Tennessee Tech rolls into town for a Friday match-up.The doubles portion of that series begins at 3:00 p.m. (CST).
The women's team will be on a road trip through Florida thisweekend, starting at Rollins College, Friday. Rollins is the No. 8ranked team in NCAA Division II. Memphis will then play its finalregular season C-USA match at South Florida, Saturday, beforerounding out the trip, Sunday, at UCF in Orlando. The Lady Tigers'final home match of the season will feature the No. 2 ranked teamin the NAIA when Auburn-Montgomery comes to town, Apr. 3rd,beginning at 2:30 p.m.
