ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Senior Evan King (Chicago, Ill./Kaplan) of the No. 21-ranked University of Michigan men's tennis team was named the Big Ten Conference Athlete of the Week in recognition of his performance last weekend, the conference office announced on Wednesday (Feb. 6). The weekly accolade is the second for King this season and the eighth of his Wolverine career.
King extended his singles winning streak to eight straight matches with a pair of victories over the weekend, including a 6-0, 6-1 decision against Princeton's No. 2-ranked Matija Pecotic last Friday (Feb. 1) at the Varsity Tennis Center. The victory gave King a win over the highest ranked opponent of his collegiate career, eclipsing his three-set win against Illinois' No. 4-ranked Dennis Nevolo last April. King is 11-3 overall this season, and he has faced ranked opponents in eight of those 14 matches.
King also teamed with junior Shaun Bernstein (Plainview, N.Y./Old Bethpage JFK HS) to claim a pair of doubles wins from the No. 1 spot. King and Bernstein began the weekend slate by defeating Princeton's 11th-ranked pairing of Pectoic and Zack McCourt, 8-4. Two days later, the U-M tandem picked up its second win over the weekend, surging past the Wake Forest pairing of David Hopkins and Amogh Prabhakar, 8-3, to improve to a team-best 4-0 in dual-match action.
U-M will hit the road this Sunday (Feb. 10), traveling to Durham, N.C., to face No. 9 Duke at noon inside the Sheffield Indoor Tennis Center.
