UCF’s Mehdi Benchakroun (men’s) and Texas Tech’s Mariia Hlahola (women’s) collected their first Big 12 weekly tennis awards of their career for matches ending Jan. 19.
 
Benchakroun concluded the weekend a combined 5-0 in singles and doubles while leading the Knights to wins over Wichita State, Florida Gulf Coast and Southern Miss. The junior won all three matches in straight sets on the No. 2 and No. 3 courts. Against Wichita State, he won 6-2, 6-3 on the third court before prevailing 6-2, 6-3 against FGCU (No. 3 court) and 6-0, 6-1 against Southern Miss in a doubleheader. He added two 6-1 doubles wins against Wichita State and FGCU and has a perfect 5-0 record in both singles and doubles play this season.
 
Hlahola opened her Texas Tech career with four wins in the Red Raiders’ doubleheader sweeps against Xavier (Ohio)(7-0) and Abilene Christian (6-0). She highlighted her weekend with a ranked victory on the top doubles court (6-3) with Avelina Sayfetdinova over Xavier’s 17^th-ranked duo of Abby Nugent and Clara Owen to clinch the doubles point. Hlahola and Sayfetdinova clinched another doubles point (6-2) against ACU 6-2 to keep the 15^th-ranked pair unbeaten this season (2-0). In singles, the junior clinched the overall match for Texas Tech against the Musketeers with a 6-2, 7-6 (7) straight sets win on court two and extended the Red Raiders lead to 5-0 against Abilene Christian with a win on court one (5-7, 6-2, 1-0 (10-4)).
 
A full list of the season’s Big 12 Tennis Players of the Week can be found here.