March 5, 2013

LOS ANGELES - The UCLA men's tennis team recently captured its second-straight Pac-12 Player of the Week Award, as Bruin sophomore Dennis Novikov was honored by the Conference on Tuesday.

Novikov, from San Jose, Calif., teamed with fellow sophomore Marcos Giron to win seven-straight matches en route to the title at the 124th Pacific Coast Doubles Championships over the weekend in La Jolla, Calif. Novikov and Giron, UCLA's No. 1 doubles team, came back from dropping the first set to beat USC's Max De Vroome and Eric Johnson, 6-7(5), 6-3, 6-4 in the championship match. The two Bruin players dropped just two sets during the tournament. Novikov is ranked No. 35 nationally in singles and No. 54 in doubles (w/Giron).

It marks the second Pac-12 Player of the Week award this year for Novikov, who also earned the honor on Feb. 12 after helping UCLA to wins over San Diego, Stanford and Cal.

Giron recently won the award on Feb. 26 after winning the clinching match in a 4-3 victory over No. 2 USC.

2013 Pac-12 Men's Tennis Players of the Week
Jan. 22 - Slim Hamza, Utah
Jan. 29 - Emilio Gomez, USC
Feb. 5 - Max de Vroome, USC
Feb. 12 - Dennis Novikov, UCLA
Feb. 19 - Yannick Hanfmann, USC
Feb. 26 - Marcos Giron, UCLA
March 5 - Dennis Novikov, UCLA