Wednesday, 03/11/2009

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.—TCU freshman Slah Mbarek claimed his second consecutive Mountain West Conference Men’s Tennis Player of the Week award, the league office announced Wednesday.

The selection marks the third week in a row a Frog was tabbed by the MWC office. In addition to Mbarek’s first honor last week, senior Kriegler Brink received the accolade two weeks ago.

Mbarek combined to go 6-2 last week between singles and doubles play while helping lead TCU to a 3-1 record. The Tunis, Tunisia, native split his four singles matches playing between his usual No. 2 position and the No. 1 position vacated by the injured Emanuel Brighiu. Mbarek stepped up in the Frogs’ top slot, going 2-0 against UT San Antonio and No. 38 Duke, including an upset win over No. 25 Reid Carleton (Duke), 6-4, 6-7, 6-0. He rebounded by finishing the week with three straight wins after dropping his first match in three sets to SMU’s David Costa.

In doubles play, Mbarek continued to team with Brink and, despite suffering their first loss of the spring against SMU’s 48th-ranked pairing of Darren Walsh and Adham el-Effendi, regrouped by finishing the week with three straight wins. The Frog tandem moved into the No. 1 doubles position in TCU’s narrow 4-3 loss to Duke and responded with a 9-7 victory over the top Blue Devil pairing of Dimitrov and Michel to conclude the week.

The win improved Mbarek and Brink’s spring doubles record to 8-1. The pair is ranked 26th nationally, while Mbarek improved his individual singles record to 8-4 after earning his first national ranking of No. 93 earlier in the week.

TCU returns to the court for the fifth of its six consecutive home matches Friday against Virginia Tech at 2 p.m.