University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa men’s tennis player Azuma Visaya earned his first Big West Player of the Week award on January 8. The 77th-ranked Visaya notched a singles win over a Top 25 player and recorded a pair of doubles wins with partner Tianhao Hou to open the 2025 season.
Visaya began the 2025 season with a bang, upsetting No. 22 Jamie Connel of 10th-ranked Florida State University (FSU) on the opening day of the Mānoa Classic. Visaya won his first set against Connel by a break. But the second set was a back-and-forth battle in which Visaya was able to edge out Connel 11-9 in a hard fought tiebreaker to end the straight-set win, 6-4, 7-6 (11-9).
In doubles, Visaya and Hou won their first match together by knocking off FSU’s Joshua Dous-Karpenschif and Jan Sebasta, 6-3 in the Mānoa Classic. Later, Visaya and Hou defeated FSU’s Alex Bulte and Erik Schlessl by a break, 6-4 to clinch the doubles point in UH’s first dual match of the season.
