The Drake men’s tennis team earned another Summit Player of the Week award after having a successful weekend getting two home match wins.
This week redshirt-sophomore Matija Matic was given the player of the week award after he had a 3-0 weekend. Matic started his weekend off with a 6-4,6-2 win at singles two and a 6-2 doubles win against Oral Roberts.
In the second match of the weekend, against Marquette, Matic played at court one in the singles matches for the first time this season. Matic was able to get yet another win for Drake. Matic also played in the doubles one match against Marquette and had a triple match point. The doubles point had been clinched already and Matic and his doubles partner redshirt-junior Evan Fragistas were unable to finish the match.
Matic has definitely shown that he was worthy of this award from this week as well as the strong season that he has had so far. Matic and Fragistas are currently undefeated in doubles dual matches for the spring 2022 season.
The Bulldog have also gone undefeated in singles matches that have been played at home for this spring season, with one of those wins being a conference win. According to assistant coach Aaron Forsberg, Matic has most definitely earned this award.
“Matija puts in a lot of work during practice each day and it shows off in all of his matches,” Forsberg said. “Matija had a great weekend, getting some great wins for the team and we are proud of how he has been performing this season, he definitely earned the award. I’m looking forward to seeing what else Matija is going to do this season, since he’s had a strong season so far in both singles and doubles.”
Matic has picked up some strong wins this season against power five schools such as Vanderbilt, as well as having some close set matches with some other big schools. In doubles, Matic was able to get some wins from some power five schools as well. Starting his season off with a win against Cornell university, Matic followed that by some wins against Vanderbilt, and Alabama.
Matic explained how he felt about being given the player of the week award.
“I was not expecting to get the award. Last weekend, I was very focused on being able to get some wins in singles and doubles for my team to help us maintain our perfect home record. Getting the award on top of that is just a bonus.”
Matic still has a lot of tennis to play this season with many more opportunities to get more player of the week awards, as well as continue to help the Bulldogs get more team wins this season. This is the second consecutive week that Drake was given player of the week award. Prior to this week Fragistas had gotten the award after having a successful weekend. Drake collected wins against Illinois State University, winning 6-1 and the University of Omaha, Nebraska, 7-0.
The Bulldogs stay at home this weekend in the Roger Knapp Center to compete against the University of Denver on Friday, April 8 at 11 a.m.
