DALLAS –Rice’s Santiago Navarro and FIU’s Yasmine Kabbaj were named Conference USA Tennis Athletes of the Week. The weekly awards are presented by Blenders Eyewear.

C-USA Men’s Tennis Athlete of the Week – Santiago Navarro, Fr., Santa Cruz, Bolivia
Navarro provided the clinching point in one match and a crucial straight-set win in the second as Rice swept a pair of matches in Albuquerque, New Mexico last weekend. Coming off his first career singles win in dual matches one week earlier, Navarro ground out a 7-5, 7-6 win to provide the clinch point over Portland. Against No. 68 New Mexico the next day, he first teamed with Campbell Salmon for one of the Owls' two doubles wins to grab the first point. He carried that momentum over to singles and was the only Owl to win his first set and maintained his advantage to win 6-4, 6-4 to post the second point while his teammates forced three of the five remaining matches to third sets, eventually winning 4-3 to record the Owls' first win over a ranked opponent since 2016.
 
C-USA Women’s Tennis Athlete of the Week –Yasmine Kabbaj, FIU, So., Fés, Morocco
Kabbaj has been key for FIU, collecting a pair of singles and doubles victories in wins over No. 36 Maryland on Saturday and Michigan State on Tuesday amongst a three-match win streak. Kabbaj's performances have helped lift FIU to a No. 35 national ranking, while earning a doubles ranking alongside teammate Oyinlomo Quadre at No. 56 behind a seven-match win streak for an 8-2 record at the No. 2 position. Kabbaj and Quadre clniched the doubles point against Maryland's Jojo Bach / Hannah McColgan, 6-2, prior to Kabbaj sparking the 4-0 clinch-clinch win with a 6-2, 6-0, defeat of Selma Cadar at the No. 1 position. She replicated her performances in a 4-1 win over Michigan State on Tuesday, coming away with a 6-4 win over MSU's Marley Lambert / Dagmar Zdrubecka to clinch the doubles point at the No. 2 spot, before downing Liisa Vehvilainen, 6-4, 6-2, for to extend a 3-0 margin prior to the 4-1 victory.
 
2023 C-USA Men’s Tennis Athletes of the Week
J18         Hunter Robbins, Florida Atlantic
J25         Emir Sendogan, Rice
F1          Ondrej Horak, Middle Tennessee
F8          Pavel Motl, Middle Tennessee
F15        Stijn Slump, Middle Tennessee
F22        Michal Lusovsky, UAB
M1         Alan Magadan, UTSA
M8         Santiago Navarro, Rice
 
2023 C-USA Women’s Tennis Athlete of the Week
J18          Leonie Schuknecht, Louisiana Tech
J25          Rachel Hermanova, WKU
F1           Ekaterina Khairutdinova, FIU
F8          Aleksandra Zlatarova, UTSA
F15        Carlotta Mencaglia, UTEP
F22         Matilde Morais, North Texas
M1         Oyinlomo Quadre, FIU
M8         Yasmine Kabbaj, FIU