Liam Draxl Earns Second SEC Player of the Week Award
LEXINGTON, Ky. – No. 16 Kentucky sophomore Liam Draxl was named Southeastern Conference Player of the Week for the second time in three cycles on Saturday, splitting the honor with No. 3 Tennessee’s Luca Wiedenmann after a technical error caused a delay in Draxl’s original nomination process.
The award comes just one day prior to the Wildcats’ conference-opening home match with LSU, scheduled for Sunday at 1 p.m. ET.
In similar fashion to the top-10 singles victory that highlighted his first SEC Player of the Week campaign on Feb. 3, the 45th-ranked and 19-year-old Draxl defeated 25-year-old No. 1 USC senior Daniel Cukierman—who had been the sport’s top-ranked singles player since Nov. 13, 2019—by a score of 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 on Feb. 11.
Draxl followed the statement win with a straight-set 6-4, 7-5 win over No. 71 Tin Chen of Louisville on Feb. 14, improving his record on the top singles court to 10-0.
Kentucky enters Sunday with an overall record of 10-1, while LSU is set to visit Lexington at 8-1, 1-0 SEC.
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