LAS VEGAS (UNLVRebels.com) – Aiwen Zhu will leave UNLV as the second most decorated women's tennis player in program history but would like to add one more honor to her resume by earning All-America status at this week's NCAA Singles Championship.
To do so, the four-time ITA regional honoree, two-time Mountain West Player of the Year and eight-time all-conference selection from Wuxi, China, needs to win two rounds at the national event being staged at the USTA National Campus in Orlando, Florida. Zhu's path to the Round of 16 and the automatic All-America designation that comes with it will not be an easy one. The Rebel senior, who is currently ranked 105th in the nation with a record of 29-7, will open play Monday by facing Oklahoma's No. 26-ranked Oleksandra Korashvili (17-8), a junior from Odessa, Ukraine, who was recently named ITA Regional Rookie of the Year and Big 12 Newcomer of the Year.
A Zhu victory would give her 103 in her collegiate career, tying her for fifth place in school history with Alesksandra Josifoska (2011-14). The match will start at approximately 2 p.m. PT with Live Scoring available as well as television coverage via the Tennis Channel. All matches shall be the best-of-three sets. No-ad scoring and a seven-point tiebreaker (first to seven points, must win by two points) at six-games-all will be used for all matches.
Zhu, who traveled to Florida just hours after going through UNLV graduation ceremonies Saturday, returns to the NCAA tournament after a promising debut a year ago when she won her first round match before falling just one set short of the Round of 16 vs. No. 14 Paige Hourigan of Georgia Tech. Zhu is just the fourth UNLV women's player in history to earn back-to-back singles trips by securing the league's automatic bid to the field of 64 as the highest ranked player in the Mountain West. She joins former Rebel greats Lucia Batta (2012-13), Elena Gantcheva (2005-06) and Marianne Vallin (1994-97) in pulling off the feat. Gantcheva is also the last Rebel to become an All-American 13 years ago.
