UGA’s Jokic, Mississippi State’s Broges Named ITA D1 Players of Year
June 3, 2019
TEMPE, Ariz. (June 3) – University of Georgia sophomore Katarina Jokic and Mississippi State University senior Nuno Broges are the 2019 ITA NCAA Division I National Players of the Year, it was announced on Monday.
Both individuals finished atop their respective final Oracle/ITA National Rankings to earn Player of the Year honors.
Borges, a five-time All-America honoree (three singles, two doubles) and three-time SEC Player of the Year becomes the third Bulldog to finish a season ranked No. 1 nationally in singles, joining Thomas Dupre (1997) and Marco Baron (2001). The Maia, Porto, Portugal, native is the only MSU player ever to earn the top billing in singles and doubles to end a season (he did so in doubles with Strahinja Rakic in 2018).
Borges reached the NCAA Singles title match last month, after having become the first Bulldog to advance to the NCAA semis in both 2017 and 2018. He finished his final season with a 37-3 singles mark that included a program-best 31-match winning streak, with 26 of those 31 wins coming in straight-set fashion.
In his career, Borges amassed 121 singles triumphs while adding 68 doubles victories to total 189 overall wins as a Bulldog, which ranks first all-time in the MSU Men’s Tennis record book.
Jokic, of Novi Grad, Bosnia, becomes the second Georgia women’s tennis player in program history to win the National Player of the Year Award, joining Angela Lettiere who earned the honor in 1994. Also Jokic is the second Bulldog all time to conclude the season in the top spot of the singles rankings. Previously, Marissa Catlin finished the 1998 season with the No. 1 singles rankings
Of the two most prestigious singles events of the collegiate season – the NCAA Championships and the ITA National Fall Championships – Jokic reached the finals of both, including winning the latter. No other player in the country reached the quarterfinals of both. The Bulldog concluded the season with a 26-6 overall singles record, including a 21-5 mark against ranked opponents. In the team dual season, she went 11-4 playing exclusively on court one. Jokic was named the Most Outstanding Player of the ITA National Team Indoor Championships after going 4-0 and clinching the final two matches to secure Georgia’s sixth all-time team title. At the final site of the NCAA Championships, Jokic defeated her opponent in the quarterfinals and semifinals to aid the Bulldogs to their first NCAA Championship appearance since 2000.