Feb. 18, 2003

CHICAGO, Ill. - University of Memphis women's tennis player Marlene Dirnstorfer was named the Conference USA women's tennis player of the week it was announced by the league office, Tuesday.

Dirnstorfer, a junior from Pinsdorf, Austria, went 3-0 in singles and 3-0 at No. 2 doubles while helping the Lady Tigers to three straight road wins over three days last weekend.

"I'm very proud, because she is playing down in our lineup, which shows the depth of our team," Head Coach Charlotte Peterson said. "She's just worked really hard and her hard work has really paid off. It's nice to see someone other than player playing No. 1 or 2 is able to get a Player of the Week honor."

The Lady Tiger (4-2 overall) depth was especially important this past week, with the top three singles players going 4-5 in the three road matches. While that would've meant trouble last year, the Lady Tigers have been able to lean on the bottom half of the line-up to produce points this year as well. The bottom three players in the line-up went 9-0 in singles last weekend.

"Our depth has been key to the success we had last weekend," Peterson said. Dirnstorfer picked up a pair of singles wins at No. 5 singles and one win at No. 4 singles and teamed with senior Sumitra Rao to earn three doubles wins at No. 2 over the weekend.

The Lady Tigers open C-USA play this weekend at Cincinnati with another three matches over three days. Memphis opens against host Cincinnati, Friday, against UAB, Saturday, and against DePaul, Sunday.

Memphis will then travel to Murfreesboro to face Middle Tennessee, Wed., March 5th before their spring season home opener against Northwestern (La.) State. Memphis will have played 10 straight road matches by the time they open their home schedule.