April 20, 2005
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - San Diego State's Markus Dickhardt has been named Mountain West Conference men's tennis player of the week for the period ending April 19. The weekly award is the sophomore's first of his career and comes after a week in which he won all six of his matches during SDSU's three-match road trip.
The Marburg, Germany, native began the week by defeating Denver's Niklas Persson, 6-4, 7-5, at No. 2 singles. A couple days later in Colorado Springs, Colo., Dickhardt downed New Mexico's Ryan Stotland, 7-5, 6-1, at the second position in helping the Aztecs clinch at least a share of the MWC regular season title. The following day in the regular season finale at Air Force, the sophomore once again was victorious at No. 2 when he used a 6-3, 6-3, effort to beat Tyler McClung.
In doubles, it was more of the same as Dickhardt and Eugenio Romero went 3-0 on the road trip. At Denver, the duo posted an 8-6 win over the Pioneer pair of Jason Tan-Steve Flaks at No. 3. Two days later versus New Mexico, the Aztec tandem collected an 8-5 victory over Eric Conklin and Derek Boland at the bottom of the lineup. The next day, in the final match of the trip, the two had no trouble disposing of McClung and Robby Alexander of Air Force, 8-4, in the Aztecs' 5-2 win. On all three occasions, SDSU won the doubles point.
For the season, Dickhardt has been ranked as low as No. 79, but is currently ranked 125th nationally in singles. He is also Dickhardt is on a five-match winning streak, including a 9-3 mark at No. 2 and a record of 16-5 this spring, helping the Aztecs earn the MWC regular season title. His 16 wins surpasses last season's total of 14 when he won conference freshman of the year honors. In doubles action with Romero, the two have won three straight and own a record of 10-1 at No. 3 and 10-2 overall.
Dickhardt joins Benedikt Stronk (Jan. 26 and March 9), Armando Carrascosa (March 30) and Dontia Haynes (April 7) as the other Aztecs honored by the conference this season. SDSU now has five weekly honors to its credit and leads the league in that category.
The 40th-ranked and top-seeded Aztecs are in action April 29 at 2:30 p.m., when they face the winner of (4)UNLV-(5)Utah at the MWC Tennis Championships. All matches will be played at Barnes Tennis Center beginning April 28.