March 20, 2003

LAS VEGAS - UNLV women's tennis star Paulina Janus has been honored by the Mountain West Conference for a school-record fifth time in her career, the league announced Thursday.

The senior from Warsaw, Poland, was named Co-Player of the Week along with New Mexico's Sandy Lukowski. Janus is the team's second such honoree after Tracie Chong earned the season's first kudo on January 29.

Janus went 2-0 in doubles play last week with partner Agnieszka Abram, winning at the top spot vs. Texas A&M and then upsetting the nation's No. 2-ranked duo of Amanda Johnson and Julie DeRoo of Duke, 9-8, the following day.

In singles action, Janus earned the deciding point in a 4-3 win over Texas A&M with a 6-3, 4-6, 6-2 victory over Jessica Rowland, which was the 50th victory of her UNLV career. Against Duke, Janus nearly pulled off one of the biggest upsets in school history but lost a lead in a third-set super tiebreaker and eventually fell to No. 2 Kelly McCain, 4-6, 6-0, 1-0 (10-8).

For the season, Janus stands 14-9 in singles and 10-5 in doubles. Her previous MWC honors came on April 4 and 19 in 2001 and Feb. 5 and March 27 last season. With this honor, she broke a tie with former All-American Katarina Malec, who earned four such awards in 2000.