SACRAMENTO -- Sacramento State junior Mayya Gorbunova was named the Big Sky Conference's women's tennis player of the week on Wednesday for the third time this season after helping lift the Hornets to a thrilling victory over Causeway rival UC Davis to close out the regular season.
Gorbunova's three awards this season are the most by a Sacramento State women's tennis student-athlete since Alina Soltanici won three times in 2016, while the five awards by the Hornets this year (teammate Maddy Ferreros has picked up two honors in 2023) are the most by the team since Tatsiana Kapshai and Rebeca Delgado combined for five awards in 2012.
Facing its rival in the final match of the regular season, Sacramento State was quick to jump out to an early lead, winning the doubles point and the first two singles matches of the day to go up 3-0. The Aggies answered with three straight singles wins to turn the attention to the No. 1 match between Gorbunova and UC Davis' Yana Gurevich.
Gorbunova rebounded from dropping the first set to Gurevich, 6-1, to stave off elimination with a 7-6 (5) victory in the second. Twice trailing at 4-3 and 5-4 in the third, the junior won the final three games of the afternoon to take the final set, 7-5, and set off a wild celebration from the sidelines.
That came after Gorbunova teamed up with Tsveti Yotova to clinch the doubles point with a 6-4 triumph over Lauren Ko and Kaia Wolfe at No. 2 for the 1-0 lead in the match.
The victory for the Hornets was their first over UC Davis since a 5-2 win in 2012, while Gorbunova pushed her singles record to 14-5 overall on the year — all at the No. 1 spot in the lineup. The 14 wins are the second-most in the league overall heading into this week's conference championships and the most by any No. 1 singles player in the Big Sky.
Sacramento State is the No. 5 seed at the Big Sky Championships at the Phoenix Tennis Center in Arizona, opening the tournament against No. 4-seeded Idaho State on Thursday (April 27) at 8 a.m. in the quarterfinals. The winner gets either No. 1 Northern Arizona or No. 2 Weber State in the semifinals.
2022-23 BIG SKY CONFERENCE PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
(Sacramento State honorees only)
Feb. 8 - Mayya Gorbunova*
Feb. 15 - Maddy Ferreros
March 8 - Mayya Gorbunova
April 5 - Maddy Ferreros
April 24 - Mayya Gorbunova
* denotes co-player of the week
