COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – On Wednesday, the Mountain West Conference announced its men's tennis awards for this week and San Diego State player Chikaya Sato was named the conference's Player of the Week, for the week ending on Tuesday, March 7.
Sato is the third Aztec to win one of the Mountain West's weekly awards this season, after the Scarlet and Black swept them on January 18, as Johannes Seeman won the Player of the Week while Eugenio Gonzalez Fitzmaurice took home Freshman of the Week.
Last week, Sato won all eight of his doubles matches with Seeman.
On Thursday, the duo defeated UC Santa Barbara's Brady/Jordan combo, ranked No. 25 at the time in the ITA men's college rankings, 6-2 to help bring home the doubles point in the Aztecs' lone dual match of the week.
Over the weekend, the pair won seven straight matches to win the Pacific Coast Doubles Championships, including victories over teams from Boston College, California, UC Santa Barbara, Pepperdine and Nebraska. The duo won five of their seven matches in straight sets and came back from being one point away from defeat against UC Santa Barbara's Mrsic/Jordan team in the quarterfinals. The event, the second oldest men's tennis tournament in the United States, featured a 128-team bracket. Sato and Seeman's performance also earned the pair the No. 80 ranking in this week's ITA poll.
San Diego State resumes its spring schedule on Monday, March 13, and Wednesday, March 15, with matches against No. 10 Harvard and No. 59 Wisconsin at the Aztec Tennis Center.