3/21/2020 4:53:00 PM | Women's Tennis
With the 2020 season suddenly cut short, the UNLV women's tennis team will remain the defending champions of the Mountain West for at least another year.
The Rebels, who knew some restructuring was in order after the loss of 2019 Conference Player of the Year Aiwen Zhu, stumbled out of the gates with five straight losses vs. a formidable list of opponents but were turning things around when all sports were halted. Kevin Cory, the winningest women's tennis head coach in school and conference history, will never know if another run through the league was in the cards.
"We had one of the most challenging schedules in our history to start out the year," said Cory. "I think that would have set us up for conference play perfectly. Turns out we ended the season on a four-match winning streak."
One of the bright spots for the program came in singles where senior Samantha Li led the squad in wins with her 11-4 record that included a 4-0 mark at the No. 6 spot in the lineup. However, the most memorable part of 2019-20 came in doubles play where the Rebel duo of En-Pei Huang and Izumi Asano reached rarified air in the national ITA rankings. The duo, which was unranked in the preseason, moved up to as high as No. 13 on February 6, marking the highest ranking for a UNLV women's tennis doubles team since September 2007 when Elena Gantcheva and Kristina Nedeltcheva began the season at No. 5.
Huang and Asano, who won their program's first ITA Mountain Regional doubles crown in the fall, officially finished the season 15-3 overall and 6-0 in dual matches. As individuals, Asano was named MW Player of the Week in back to back weeks (Feb. 12 & 19) while Huang was similarly honored on Feb. 26.
Cory, who is in his 21st season at the helm, now must wait until 2021 to attempt to add to an impressive haul of 12 combined conference championships (six regular-season and six tournament).
"We were looking forward to defending our Mountain West Championships in both the regular season and the tournament," he said. "We felt like we were playing well when it ended."
