A&M's Sanchez-Quintanar Aces All-Big 12 Awards

Texas A&M's Cristina Sanchez-Quintanar dominated the Big 12 Conference annual tennis awards, as she was voted both the Big 12 Conference Player of the Year and the Big 12 Newcomer of the Year.

Courtesy: Texas A&M Athletics

Release: 05/08/2012

COLLEGE STATION, Texas - Texas A&M women's tennis standout Cristina Sanchez-Quintanar (pronounced keen-tah-nar) dominated the Big 12 Conference annual tennis awards announced today, as she was voted the Big 12 Conference Women's Player of the Year and the Big 12 Newcomer of the Year by the league's head coaches. She becomes the first female in the history of the Big 12 to win both awards in the same year.

In addition, the junior from Campo de Criptana, Spain, was a unanimous All-Big 12 Team selection for both singles and doubles.

A&M players also made school history as the Aggies had a record three players named to the All-Big 12 Team in singles. In addition to Sanchez-Quintanar, junior Nazari Urbina was a unanimous selection for All-Big 12 singles honor and was named to the 12-member team for a third consecutive year. Junior Wen Sun also was named to the All-Big 12 team in singles and joined Sanchez-Quintanar as a unanimous selection on the All-Big 12 Team for doubles.

Baylor tied A&M for most players named to the All-Big 12 Team in singles with three, but A&M led all schools with two unanimous selections. Six schools had a doubles team named All-Big 12, with A&M and Baylor receiving the only unanimous selections.

In her first year at A&M after playing one season at Maryland, Sanchez-Quintanar was the runaway Big 12 No. 1 singles champion after posting a 9-0 record in conference matches. Eight of her nine victories were in straight sets as she helped lead the Aggies to a 7-2 conference record and a tie for second place in the Big 12 standings.

Ranked as high as No. 4 in the national singles rankings -- a record-high for an A&M player -- Sanchez-Quintanar finished the regular season 35-5 overall and ranked a conference-high No. 8 to receive the Big 12's automatic berth into the 64-player NCAA Singles Championship. She will be the No. 7 seed, automatically garnering All-America honors by virtue of her top-16 seed.

A two-time Big 12 Player of the Week selection, Sanchez-Quintanar teamed with Sun to capture a share of the Big 12 No. 1 doubles title with a 7-2 conference record, and the pair received an at-large berth into the 32-team NCAA Doubles Championship with a 21-9 overall record and a No. 38 ranking.

Urbina was 7-2 in conference singles matches and is 20-6 overall, including 17-4 in dual matches. She is 14-3 at the No. 2 singles line and has received a school-record third at-large berth into the NCAA Singles Championship.

Sun was the Big 12 No. 3 singles champion with an 8-1 record. She is 24-10 overall, including 18-4 in dual matches.

No. 19 Texas A&M (18-5) opens NCAA team tournament play against LSU at 9 a.m. (CT) in Ann Arbor, Mich. The Aggies are making their 13^th consecutive and 18^th overall appearance in the women's tennis championships.