UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Junior Petra Januskova (Ottawa, Canada) was named Big Ten Women’s Tennis Athlete of the Week for the week of Sept. 28. This marks the first time in Januskova’s career that she has won the award. She is the first Nittany Lion to win the weekly award since Sasha Abraham in April of 2007.
In last weekend’s Cissie Leary Invitational in Philadelphia, Pa. the number-one ranked Januskova won five straight matches to capture the singles crown. On her way to the title she only lost one set the entire tournament.
In addition, she and her partner, Nina Sertic (Zagrab, Croatia), placed second in the doubles portion of the tournament, with a record of 3-1. Overall, in her first weekend of fall play, Januskova claimed an 8-1 record, a singles tournament crown and doubles tournament runner-up finish.
This marks the first year the Big Ten has given out weekly awards for tennis in the fall season. Although this past weekend was Penn State’s first fall tournament, some other teams around the conference have been competing for two weeks. Nebraska’s Janine Weinreich was awarded the honor for the week of Sept. 14 and Iowa’s Shelby Talcott was named the winner for the week of Sept. 21.
In this year’s ITA Division 1 Preseason Women’s Singles Rankings Januskova was ranked No. 108. The junior will represent Penn State in the All-American Championships in Pacific Palisades, Calif., Oct. 1-9. The entire Nittany Lion team returns to action at the Rice Invitational in Houston, Oct. 7-9.