INDIANAPOLIS, Ind.—University of Hawai'i women's tennis player Petra Melounova was announced as the Big West Conference's nominee for the 2021 NCAA Woman of the Year award. Melounova is now one of 152 conference-level nominees from across all three NCAA divisions for the prestigious national award.
 
Melounova, who graduated this past spring with a Bachelor's of Science degree in electrical engineering, has been a standout student athlete both on and off the court since she arrived from Havlickuv Brod, Czech Republic as a freshman.
 
On the court, Melounova is the most decorated Rainbow Wahine in program history. In 2019, after advancing to the NCAA Singles Championships Round of 16, Melounova became UH's first-ever, first team All-American. She is the only Hawai'i player—male or female—to ever earn a spot in the NCAA Singles tournament three consecutive years. Melounova is the only Hawai'i player to ever be named Big West Player of the Year three times and despite injuries, she was voted to the all-Big West first team in singles all four season and to the doubles first team three times. She also earned Big West Freshman of the Year honors in 2017. As a sophomore in 2018, Melounova helped to lead the Rainbow Wahine tennis team to just their second NCAA tournament appearance. Melounova concluded her career with a 55-19 overall singles record.
 
In the classroom, Melounova has also been a high achiever, earning four Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Scholar-Athlete awards and four Big West Scholar-Athlete awards. She was named the Big West's Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year for Hawai'i as a sophomore, junior and senior. Melounova was also tabbed the 2020 Jack Bonham Award winner which is given to the University of Hawai'i's top student athlete in athletics and academics. She has been a UH Scholar-Athlete for five seasons and was on the Dean's List five different semesters. In electrical engineering, Melounova was a member of the VIP Microbotics team (Fall 2020) and a member of Renewable Energy Design (RED) Lab team (Fall  2018-Spring 2019).
 
In the community both on campus and off, Melounova spent time volunteering in her spare time. She served on UH's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) from 2016-18. She and her teammates were a part of the Wahine Tennis Impact Project— Annual Beach Cleanups for four years from 2016-19. Melounova also spent time tutoring youth in the community in two different capacities—she participated in the "Ace to Success" tutoring program at the Boys & Girls Club where she helped tutor children and participate in other fun activities to motivate the local youth to excel in school. She also helped with the "Covid Tutoring Outreach Program" at Waikīkī Elementary School where she mentored and tutored students from the Czech Republic through Zoom meeting. Melounova who was at home at the time would virtually communicate with the elementary school students despite the 12 hour time difference.

Eligible female student-athletes are nominated by their member school. Each conference office then reviews the nominations from its core member schools and submits its conference nominee(s) to the NCAA. The NCAA Woman of the Year selection committee identifies the Top 30 – 10 from each division – and from there selects three finalists from each division. From the nine finalists, the NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics then selects the NCAA Woman of the Year, who will be named this fall.