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New Mexico Women's Tennis Capture Regional Awards
Ana Friganovic named the 2000 ITA Central Region Senior Player of the Year.
May 4, 2000
University of New Mexico women's tennis assistant coach Roy Canada was named 2000 ITA Central Regional Assistant Coach of the Year and senior Ana Friganovic captured two awards, the ITA Central Region/Tennis Magazine Arthur Ashe, Jr. Sportsmanship & Leadership Award, plus the 2000 ITA Central Region Senior Player of the Year honors announced today, May 4th by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association. Both Canada and Friganovic are now nominees for the national award to be presented at the 2000 NCAA Women's Tennis Championships in Malibu, Calif., May 21-27. Arguably New Mexico most distinguished women's tennis player in the history of the program, Friganovic, from Zagreb, Croatia, has left her mark at UNM. Friganovic completes her collegiate career with several accomplishments including being named four-time All-Conference (in both the WAC and the Mountain West), All-Academic and Scholar Athlete, and last season was an ITA Academic All-America. Friganovic played the No. 1 position in the lineup her entire collegiate career and was team co-captain her senior year. If named to the NCAAs as an individual this season, Friganovic will have competed in nationals each year at New Mexico - a first for the women's tennis program. Among other accomplishments, Friganovic was named co-champion (with teammate junior Natalia Alekhova) at the 1999 ITA Central Region championships held last November. As a freshman she captured WAC Freshman of the Year honors and was named the ITA's Central Region Rookie Player of the Year. She at the moment has UNM's career record for most wins with 112 and has managed to maintain a 3.7 cumulative grade point average while majoring in International Business. Prior to coming to New Mexico Friganovic was an accomplished juniors champion and was No. 1 in Croatia for two years. Canada, from Mexico City, Mexico, is in his fourth-year as assistant coach with the women's tennis program. Canada's collegiate career at New Mexico was marked with honors including being named an All-American in doubles with partner Coulter Wright in 1994. Canada was a member of the Lobo team which swept the WAC Championships every year while at UNM. Canada earned All-Conference honors three of four years. After his collegiate career was done Canada played on the ATP Tour and was ranked 690 in the world in doubles and as high as 840 in singles.
Aside from coaching, Canada runs the highly successful Lobo junior camps during the summer. He still competes in several tournaments and was recently a finalist in the Albuquerque City Championships. A 1994 graduate with a degree in Communications from UNM, Canada and his wife Virginia, have one child, Joshua Andrew, age 2, and are expecting their second in the fall.
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