Tennis Postseason Awards and Teams Announced

12:34 pm | May 1, 2019 | Go to Source | Author:

Texas Tech’s Felicity Maltby along with TCU’s Alex Rybakov and Christian Sigsaard headlined this year’s 2019 Big 12 Tennis postseason awards. Honorees named to the list were selected by a vote of the league’s head coaches. Coaches were not permitted to vote for themselves nor their own student-athletes.

Additionally, individual position champions were crowned this year for the first time since 2014.

On the men’s side, previous Big 12 Freshman of the Year honorees, Sigsgarrd and Ryabkov shared Big 12 Men’s Player of the Year honors. The duo shared the No. 1 singles position title after leading their respective teams with a 4-1 record in Conference play. Maltby was tabbed the Big 12 Women’s Tennis Player of the Year award, as she recorded the most wins in singles play through regular-season Big 12 play. Her 8-1 record earned her the No. 1 singles position champion title and a unanimous selection to the All-Big 12 Singles First Team.

Both the Men’s Newcomer of the Year, Matej Vocel (Oklahoma State), and the Men’s Freshman of the Year, Adrian Boitan (Baylor), earned their postseason awards unanimously. Boitan clinched the championship match for the Bears in Lawrence, as BU was crowned the 2019 Big 12 Tennis Champions. OSU’s Vocel helped register the most wins by a doubles tandem at the No. 2 spot during regular-season Big 12 play. It had been six years since a Baylor student-athlete earned the rookie honor.

Oklahoma’s Oleksandra Korashvili earned Big 12 Women’s Newcomer of the Year honors after a season that saw the junior hand Anastasia Rychagova (Kansas) one of only two losses on the season, snapping a 10-match singles win streak at the time. The Sooner earned three-straight Big 12 Tennis Player of the Week awards (March 5, 12 and 19) and four overall during the 2019 campaign, a conference record for the most in one season. Ellie Douglas is the first-ever Horned Frog to claim Women’s Tennis Freshman of the Year. She was voted unanimously to earn both the individual award and a spot on the All-Freshman Team.

Kansas women’s head coach Todd Chapman and Texas interim men’s head coach Bruce Berque were named Coach of the Year for their respective sports. Berque piloted the Texas men’s tennis program to its eighth regular-season Big 12 title and a spot in the 2019 Big 12 Tennis Championship final. Coach Chapman led the Jayhawks to a 19-4 overall record (7-2 Big 12), which included all three wins at the 2019 Big 12 Tennis Championship. KU was crowned the tournament champions for the first time in the Big 12 era. This marks the second year in a row in which a Texas coach has won the award and the first Coach of the Year honor for the Jayhawks since 2002.