BATON ROUGE — LSU senior Marina Chiarelli was named the Southeastern Conference women’s tennis player of the week the league office announced Tuesday.
The Curitaba, Brazil, native capped off the regular season Saturday by upsetting No. 55 Ela Kaluder of Arkansas on court two to clinch the match for the Lady Tigers. It was her second victory over a top-60 opponent in as many weeks, as Chiarelli also defeated No. 57 Ashley Bentley of Alabama the previous week.
The senior showed her toughness by fighting back after dropping the first set, 6-4. Behind 5-3 in the decisive set, she staged an impressive comeback to take the win. After the match was tied at 6-all and Chiarelli was down 5-3 in the tiebreaker, she grabbed control and notched the final four points to clinch the win for her team in her Senior Day appearance.
She finished the regular season with 16 singles wins, tied for second on the team. In addition to her stellar singles play last week, she won two more doubles matches, picking up doubles victories No. 17 and 18 for the year. She and partner Anastasiya Dubova have won five straight doubles matches to end the regular season.
This award marks the first of Chiarelli’s career and the first time an LSU player has received it since Jessica Ferguson earned the distinction twice in 2004.
The Lady Tigers begin play in the SEC Tournament in Gainesville, Fla., on Thursday at 1 p.m. CT in a rematch against Arkansas.