College tennis: Utes and Cougars playing for MWC tennis titles

The Utah and BYU men's and women's tennis teams open play in the Mountain West Conference championship tournament today in Albuquerque.

The Ute men are the No. 3 seed and will face UNLV at 1 p.m., while the No. 4-seeded Cougars go against San Diego State at 10 a.m. Wins would put each team in the semifinals — BYU against No. 1 seed TCU on Friday morning, and Utah against the New Mexico-Air Force winner on Friday afternoon. The finals are set for Saturday at 2 p.m. with the winner getting an automatic NCAA berth.

"This is the part of the season that we have been playing for all season," said Utah assistant coach Roeland Brateanu. "If we play well and compete hard anything is possible."

The Utes are led by Wes Hancock, a senior from St. George, at No. 1 singles and Philip Eilers, a junior from Germany, at No. 2.

BYU is led by Roman Warias, a freshman from Germany, and Evan Urbina, a sophomore from California.

In the women's event, BYU is the No. 4 seed and faces tourney host New Mexico at 2 p.m., while No. 6 Utah meets San Diego State at 10 a.m. Semifinals are Friday with the finals set for Saturday at 10 a.m.

The Cougars' top players are Kristina Doerr, a junior from Alpine, and McCall Jones, a freshman from California.

"We're just going to try to do things we did well last time and improve in the areas we think we could do better in," BYU coach Craig Manning said. "We match up well against New Mexico. It should be fun."

The Utes are led by freshman Anastasia Putilina, who is 9-9 as the Utes' No. 1 player, and Salt Lake's Erin Monson, who plays No. 2 singles.

"We are very much looking forward to our rematch with SDSU," said Utah head coach Mat Iandolo. "The individual match-ups are going to be different, but I feel that it still going to be a very competitive match."

TCU is the defending men's champion and UNLV is the defending women's champion.

MWC awards handed out

New Mexico senior Ola Abou-Zekry collected her first MWC Player of the Year honor after posting a 24-10 record this season, including a 7-1 mark in MWC matches at the No. 1 position. The Cairo, Egypt, native, registered four victories over ranked opponents during the 2008-09 campaign.

BYU's McCall Jones earned MWC Freshman of the Year honors after netting a 20-11 overall record this season, including a 4-3 mark in MWC action at the No. 1 position.

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