IRVINE, Calif.—University of Hawai'i women's tennis player Ana Vilcek won the first Big West Women's Tennis Player of the Week award of the 2024 season on Wednesday. This is Vilcek's second career BW Player of the Week award.
 
The Rainbow Wahine opened the season hosting the high-powered Weinman Foundation Invitational battling a pair of ranked teams No. 9 NC State, No. 19 California plus BYU and Florida State who both finished 2023 ranked in the final ITA team poll.
 
Vilcek, a junior from Pancevo, Serbia, went 2-2 in singles to open the year in the Weinman Foundation Invitational. Vilcek began the tourney with a tough sweep over BYU's Yujia Huang, 7-4, 7-5 then she upset North Carolina's 19^th-ranked Sophie Abrams in straight sets, 6-2, 6-3. Vilcek took her momentum into her next match in which she shut out Cal's 12^th-ranked Hannah Viller Moeller in the first set, but eventually fell in three.
 
In doubles, Vilcek and partner Nelly Knezkova closed out the Invitational with a clutch, 7-6 (5) victory over Florida State's Millie Bissett and Ellie Schoppe. The day prior, Vilcek and Knezkova fell in a heartbreaker by a tiebreaker to Call's Mao Mushika and Viller Moeller, 7-6 (3). She started the tourney playing with Nikola Homolkova.