By Brandon Burke, UT Martin Sports Information
BRENTWOOD, Tenn. – Going for a clean sweep of today’s weekly Ohio Valley Conference awards unveiling, the University of Tennessee at Martin tennis team landed both singles and doubles player of the week honors from the league on Tuesday afternoon. Reaching OVC Player of the Week status for the second time in five weeks, junior Aziza Aubin and teammate Amelia Campbell cap off a fantastic five-day sequence for the Skyhawks that included the team’s first league victory of 2022 and a Doubles Team of the Week nod to go along with it.
Advancing toe-to-toe with one of the strongest programs in the conference during Friday’s league-opener at SIUE, UT Martin followed up that gritty performance with a neutral-court W over Eastern Illinois less than 24 hours later in Champaign, knocking off the Panthers 5-2 for the second consecutive season. In both of these OVC meetings, the Aubin/Campbell pair proved as strong as it’s been all semester.
Now boasting five duo’s wins to their credit since January, the upperclassmen tandem picked up back-to-back W’s on the road by a combined margin of 13-6 (which included a 6-0 shellacking of EIU to close out the weekend). Responsible for over 20% of the Skyhawks’ 24 doubles wins this year, the pair have complimented head coach Caitlyn Williams’ club exceptionally well since gaining a head of steam in OVC territory.
Speaking of grabbing momentum, perhaps no women’s tennis competitor in all of the conference can claim to be on a hotter streak than Aubin, now a two-time recipient of the league’s Player of the Week plaudit in her third season with the program. Counting another perfect week – not only with singles victories over Eastern Illinois and SIUE, but also repeating that feat against College of Charleston just days earlier – the junior’s impressive winning streak has risen all the way to eight matches, with nine individual wins as a whole.
No opposing player has been able to get the better of Aubin over the last 44 days and counting, grabbing consecutive wins over Carson-Newman, Saint Louis, Chicago State, Missouri State, and UNC Asheville before scooping up a trifecta last week. Mixed in with the two doubles wins alongside Campbell, Aubin boasts six total victories to her name over the past 10 days and a new reputation as one of the most formidable players in the Ohio Valley Conference.
When factoring in fall competition, UT Martin has amassed 41 solo wins next to 24 additional triumphs in tag-team action. 18 of those victories have come from either Campbell or Aubin (or the both of them working in conjunction with one another), allowing the Skyhawks to sweep Tuesday’s OVC Player of the Week acclamation.
Only five more matches remain on UTM’s spring schedule before a hopeful postseason berth, returning home this Saturday to meet Southeast Missouri at 1:00 p.m. A road trip to Belmont will then pass six days later as the Skyhawks begin the closing stretch of the 2022 campaign
Graphic courtesy of UT Martin Sports Information