Story by Thomas Corhern
Cookeville Herald-Citizen Sports

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. -- There have been some great men’s tennis players come through the Tennessee Tech program.

Two years ago, Syrym Abduhkalikov proved to be one of the most dominant players in the Ohio Valley Conference en route to be selected as the 2013 Tech Male Athlete of the Year.

This year, Alex Arovin seemed to be following in those same footsteps.

With a 6-2 record in conference singles play, Arovin was a solid number one for the Tech team. But where the junior really shined was in doubles with teammate Alberto Esteban as the duo went 7-0 in league play, helping the Golden Eagles secure yet another conference championship.

Arovin was named the 2015 OVC Player of the Year along the way, and now he gets another award to place alongside it, named Tech’s Male Athlete of the Year for 2015.

Arovin is just the second tennis player to win the award since it was created in 1994. He beat out Dylan Bosheers (baseball), Charles Jackson (basketball), Marty Jones (football), Eduardo Mena (tennis), Geoffrey Sambu (cross country), Darian Stone (football), Austin Tallant (football), Mitch Thomas (golf) and Lee Whitehead (golf) for the honor.

And to be spoken of as highly as Abduhkalikov means a lot to the junior.

“I feel really proud to be thought of in Tech tennis history as a solid player,” Arovin said. “To win this award is a great honor, and it was one of my goals for this year.”

Arovin entered the season ranked 94th in the preseason Intercollegiate Tennis Association standings, then, with Esteban, finished fourth in the Ohio Valley region in doubles in the ITA charts.

“I was really happy to see myself ranked,” Arovin said. “In the first matches of the season, I felt some pressure because of that, and it was really distracting for my game. So later on, I just learned to forget about it and it helped me a lot. By the end of the season, we weren’t thinking about the ranking, just playing. We just did what we do best — play tennis.”

And with a perfect record in doubles in OVC play, it showed that Arovin had a great rapport with Esteban and it went a long way.

“Alberto Esteban is one of the best double partners I have ever had,” Arovin said. “He supports me in and out of the court. When we are playing doubles, we almost don’t even need to talk with each other because it’s like we know each other’s thoughts. That’s what I call a double partners’ connection.

“If we wouldn’t communicate that well, we would lose for sure. There is one good phrase for this: ‘win as one or lose as two.’”

Arovin also showed great humility as being named the OVC Player of the Year.

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