SAN ANTONIO – UTSA student-athlete Sebastian Rodriguez has been named the Conference USA Men's Tennis Athlete of the Month; the league office announced Tuesday.
Rodriguez had a productive September month of action for the Roadrunners as the junior from Peru had wins over multiple programs' top players as well as competed in the singles and doubles of the ITA All-Americans.
Rodriguez got the season started with quality wins at the Louisiana Lafayette Hidden Dual. The very next weekend he won the Jauer Roadrunner Invitational doubles draw with teammate Alan Magadan.
Across those two competitions, Rodriguez notched wins over two Power 5 programs' top student-athletes, downing Olle Wallin of Texas Tech and Mark Mandlik of Oklahoma, and has also beat top performers from Louisiana-Lafayette, Tulane and South Alabama.
After those two competitions, Rodriguez went on to the ITA All-Americans, competing in both the singles prequalification rounds and the doubles prequalification rounds (again with Magadan). In the singles draw he performed extremely well, going 3-1 and falling just short of the qualification round. Rodriguez began the competition with a win over Pacific's Andre Rodeia (6-4, 6-1) and a win over Nic Meister of the University of Illinois (6-2, 6-0). Rodriguez advanced to the next day's action where he downed Joshua Dous Karpenschif of Florida State (6-2, 6-2). Rodriguez's run came to an end in the round of 32, as he fell to Harsh Parikh (6-4, 6-3) of the University of Pennsylvania.
When asked about Rodriguez's performance, coach Avdeyev said, "Sebastian earning player of the month is reflection of his success this fall." He continued, "We've always known that he is very talented. We're very excited to see him putting it together and producing such high level victories. He will continue to improve and will be well ready for the spring to help the team."
Rodriguez will be one of eight Roadrunners participating in the ITA Texas Regionals over Oct. 13-17 where he will begin this Friday, Oct. 14, in the main draw.
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