Complete WAC Release
DENVER - A revamped Western Athletic Conference did little to prevent members of the NM State men's tennis team from again collecting their fair share of postseason hardware from the league.
In a release issued Wednesday afternoon by the WAC, a trio of NM State men's tennis players - Gijs Akkermans, Louis Menard and Jordy Visser - secured All-WAC honors for the 2022 regular season.
Menard added to his extensive list of individual accolades by earning a spot on the All-WAC Singles First Team. Akkermans and Visser were two of the six individuals who comprised the All-WAC Singles Second Team while Menard and Visser carved out a spot for themselves on the All-WAC Doubles Second Team.
For the third time in his collegiate career, Menard, who hails from Annecy, France, has been selected as one of the members of the All-WAC Singles First Team. One of the best players in the league, Menard manufactured a 9-7 mark throughout the regular season which included a 4-2 showing against league competition. His nine singles wins topped the Aggies' charts and he picked up his 50th dual match singles win in an NM State uniform on March 11 by scoring a 6-2, 7-4 over UC Davis' Andrei Volgin.
Year two of Akkermans' time in an NM State shirt saw him turn into one of the WAC's best singles players. After capturing just a pair of singles victories one season ago, the Sint-Michielsgestel, The Netherlands, product was nothing short of a dominant force in WAC singles action. The sophomore's 8-11 one-on-one mark during the regular season was accentuated by a 5-1 record against WAC opposition as he played the final 10 matches of the regular season on line five.
Like Akkermans, Visser experienced a major improvement from last year to this one. Out of Bemmel, The Netherlands, Visser hiked his singles record from 4-11 one season ago to 9-7 through the 2022 regular season. Visser's nine singles wins were tied with Menard for the most among the Aggies' ranks and when slotted on line six he was particularly dangerous. There, he went 7-1 which included a 5-1 mark against WAC foes.
Together, Menard and Visser carried over their strong play from a season ago and continued to serve as one of the Aggies' best tandems. Slotted on line one in doubles play for the majority of the season, Menard and Visser constructed a 10-8 mark through the regular season which featured a 3-2 showing against WAC opponents. That duo was 7-7 in top-flight doubles action and has gone 15-9 in dual match doubles play since the start of the 2020-21 season.
Akkermans, Menard, Visser and the rest of the Aggies are in Beaumont, Texas, for the 2022 WAC Men's Tennis Tournament. As the third seed, NM State is hoping to punch its ticket to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2018. The Aggies' postseason run begins Friday at 8:00 a.m. MT when they tangle with sixth-seeded Chicago State in a WAC Tournament quarterfinal matchup from the Beaumont Municipal Tennis Center.
++NM State++
