April 24, 2002

LAS VEGAS - The UNLV women's tennis team, which fell one spot to No. 19 in Wednesday's national rankings, looks to win its second Mountain West Conference title in three attempts as the league championship tournament opens Thursday in Provo, Utah.

The Lady Rebels led the conference in overall wins with a school-record-tying 17-3 regular-season mark and finished second with a 6-1 MWC record. San Diego State was the only team to finish 7-0 in league play and earned the top seed.

UNLV, which won the inaugural tournament two years ago on its home court, will open play vs. seven seed Colorado State (6-16/1-6) at 9 a.m. PDT. The Lady Rebels were upset by the Rams a year ago in the first round en route to a fifth-place finish.

Also in the first round, the Aztecs (16-7/7-0) will face eight seed Wyoming (5-13/1-6), third seed New Mexico (12-9/5-2) takes on sixth-seeded Air Force (11-11/2-5) and four seed BYU (9-12/4-3) will challenge fifth-seeded Utah (9-13/2-5).

The semifinals will be Friday while the fifth-place match and championship are slated for Saturday at the BYU Tennis Complex.

UNLV is led by two of the league's three ranked singles players. Junior Paulina Janus rose one spot to No. 91 in this week's rankings while freshman Gyorgyi Zsiros improved two spots to No. 94.