Anastasia Smirnova Earns C-USA Weekly Honor

3/20/2019 12:07:00 PM | Women's Tennis

Women's Tennis Athlete of the Week presented by Top of the World

By: Chuck Pool (cpool@rice.edu)

Rice freshman Anastasia Simirnova has been honored by Conference USA as the Women's Tennis Athlete of the Week after extending her winning streak in singles with a pair of wins last week. All C-USA weekly awards are presented by Top of the World.

Smirnova ran her singles winning streak to four matches last weekend with a pair of wins while playing at the second singles line. She drew the Owls even with 20th ranked Pepperdine with a swift 6-2, 6-1 win over Adrijana Lekaj and then delivered the clinching point in Rice's 6-1 win over Dartmouth on Sunday.

This is the third weekly honor for the Owls this year. Michaela Haet has been honored twice this spring (January 16 & February 13).

Smirnova extended her winning streak to five matches with a win on Tuesday against Johns Hopkins. The Owls will hit the road this weekend for a pair of matches in Princeton, NJ. They will face No. 49 Princeton at 1 p.m. on Friday, followed by a match with William & Mary at 1 p.m. on Saturday.