BERKELEY – California men’s tennis star Yuta Kikuchi was named the Pac-12 Player of the Week on Tuesday, the conference office announced. The Pac-12 lauded the Golden Bear graduate student after he led the then-No. 43 Cal to conference victories over No. 28 UCLA and No. 10 USC in the last regular-season home matches of his career.
This is the second Pac-12 Player of the Week accolade for Kikuchi, who first garnered the honor in the spring of 2022.
Against the Bruins on Friday, Kikuchi defeated Patrick Zahraj, 6-4, 6-2, at court-one singles to clinch Cal’s win. The Yahaba, Japan, native also partnered with senior Philip Hjorth to clinch the doubles point with a 7-5 win over UCLA’s Jeffrey Fradkin and Aadarsh Tripathi on court three.
On Saturday, in possibly his last match as a collegian at the Hellman Tennis Complex, the 37th-ranked Kikuchi beat USC’s 35th-ranked Stefan Dostanic, 6-3, 6-1. That win gave Cal a 1-1 tie with the Trojans and started a comeback that resulted in Cal’s 4-3 triumph.
Kikuchi and the now 29th-ranked Bears (11-7, 3-2 Pac-12) next play at No. 20 Stanford (12-7, 3-2) in the Big Slam on Saturday at 2:30 p.m.
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