UC Davis junior Sara Tsukamoto corralled her second career Big West Women’s Tennis Athlete of the Week honor after a combined 3-1 record against a pair of conference opponents.

Tsukamoto won both doubles matches at No. 1 with partner Lauren Ko against UC Santa Barbara and Cal Poly. The Aggie duo won by identical 6-2 scores over Anastasia Goncharova and Dominika Paterova of UCSB, and Emily Ackerman and Emily Monaghan of Cal Poly.

The win over Goncharova and Paterova helped the Aggies clinch the doubles point, their first against the Gauchos since 2014.

She split her two singles contests at No. 1. Tsukamoto found herself in an 5-2 hole to Amit Lev-Ari of UCSB in the first set, only to win the next 11 straight games for the 7-5, 6-0 victory. She was the only Aggie to win in singles against UCSB.

Tsukamoto is now 6-5 in singles dual matches and 6-4 in doubles this season.

OTHERS NOMINATED: Kim Bhunu (Cal Poly); Genevieve Zeidan (Cal State Fullerton); Wiktoria Rutkowska (Long Beach State); Jenna Schlatter (UC Irvine); Satsuki Takamura (Hawai‘i)

PHOTO BY WAYNE TILCOCK