Feb. 12, 2009
LAS VEGAS - A pair of former UNLV All-Americans - Elena Gantcheva and Katarin Malec -- helped make up the singles portion of the Mountain West Conference 10th Anniversary Women's Tennis Team, the league announced Thursday.
The winningest, and perhaps greatest, player in league history, Gantcheva is the only woman to be named MWC Player of the Year three times in a career (2006, '07, '08). The 2005 MWC Freshman of the Year and 2006 ITA singles All-American is the only Lady Rebel to earn a top-10 national ranking in both singles and doubles during a career. A four-time all-conference honoree in singles and three-timer in doubles, the native of Sofia, Bulgaria, earned a combined five career trips to the NCAA singles and doubles championships, including advancing to the doubles round of 16 in 2007. She led her team to three trips the NCAA tournament and capped her career by helping UNLV to a league tournament title in 2008. She closed with an all-time best 26-4 singles record vs. Mountain West opponents and set a league record with nine career player-of-the-week awards from 2005-08.
Malec, who transferred to UNLV from junior college and fought through injuries as a junior, turned in a dominating senior campaign in 2000. The inaugural MWC Player of the Year was also the first-ever Mountain West Student-Athlete of the Year. The native of Warsaw, Poland, was a part of the first-ever Lady Rebel doubles team to win a match at the NCAA tournament and reeled off four singles wins at the event to crash the national semifinals of women's tennis, where she was ousted from the Final Four in three sets by the No. 1 seed. Malec's stunning season saw her post a school-record 19-match winning streak, shatter the school record for wins in a year with a 39-5 clip and pushed her record vs. ranked opponents to an eye-popping 17-3. The MWC 10th Anniversary Women's Tennis Team was selected by a combined panel of media, institutional and conference personnel and online fan poll. In order to be eligible for consideration, candidates must have been an all-Mountain West selection at least once in their careers.
Anniversary teams will be chosen for each of the 19 conference-sponsored sports during the 2008-09 season in celebration of the Mountain West's 10th year.
Mountain West Women's Tennis 10th Anniversary Team
SINGLESPlayer, School Years Played in MWC All-ConferenceLauren Jones, BYU 2004-2007 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007Anastasia Surkova, BYU 2005-2008 2005, 2007, 2008Iva Gersic, New Mexico 2004-2006 2004, 2005, 2006Maja Kovacek, New Mexico 2003-2006 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006Silvia Tornier, SDSU 2001-2003 2001, 2002, 2003Elena Gantcheva, UNLV 2005-2008 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008Katarina Malec, UNLV 2000 2000
DOUBLESPlayers, School Years All-ConferenceAnastasia Surkova/Jennifer Miccoli, BYU 2005-2008 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008Sandy Lukowski/Maja Kovacek, New Mexico 2003-2004 2003, 2004Ana Cetnik/Anna Sydorska, TCU 2007 2007
