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14 CAVALIER CORNER 2022-23 IN REVIEW BY MELISSA DUDEK L ess than two hours after his squad had blanked Ole Miss in the second round of the NCAA Tournament on their home courts at the Boar's Head Sports Club, third-year Iñaki Montes and his teammates were sitting in the stands of John Paul Jones Arena when he was announced as the athletic department's Male Athlete of the Year. "I was shaking," Montes said. "I remember running to the stage and I was shaking. I wasn't expecting that at all. There are so many top athletes here at UVA in all the sports and it is really competitive. Coach told me that only maybe three or four players in UVA tennis history won that award before, and so it was pretty inspirational. "It makes me realize that I'm doing things right and it makes me happy. It also helps keep me going and keeps me motivated, keeps me fighting for UVA and doing the right things." Montes is the fifth tennis player to be named the WINA Male Athlete of the Year, but it is just one of the many honors he has amassed in his three seasons with the Cavaliers. He was the 2022 ACC Men's Tennis Player of the Year and is a two-time ITA All-American. Most impor- tantly, he has been the heart of the Cavaliers' back-to-back NCAA championship runs. "I knew Iñaki was going to be a great fit for our program because of his love of the game, his creativity, how much he loved to compete," UVA head coach Andres Pedroso said. "And his family. He was brought up the right way with the right values. He just represents everything that's right about this program and this university." Of all of his awards, including four All-ACC recognitions, perhaps his most impressive honor is being named a 2022-23 Academic All-American, one of the most competitive national accolades for any student-athlete to win, let alone one for whom English is a sec- ond language. "Academically, he's become one of our best students," Pedroso said. "He came in with a language barrier. He's worked through that and he's become a great student. He's majoring in economics and will leave the University of Virginia with a diploma in that, which is a huge feat. I'm really proud of him for that." Montes grew up in Pamplona, Spain, picking up a racquet at quite an early age, a ping-pong paddle, to be precise. After a 3-year-old Montes picked up the paddle, his parents thought he might enjoy playing tennis. He started lessons at the age of 4 at the local tennis club but wasn't singularly focused on one sport, also playing a sport that still is very dear to his heart, soccer, and several others. At 14, he became the all-ages Pamplona tennis champion, a title that put his tennis career into another gear. "When I became the champion of Pam- plona, I was beating good players much older than me," Montes said. "So people started to tell me that I was good at tennis. I started playing more nationally and had good results. I was inside the top 10, top five, top three. And then I kept going and I was among the best players of my age. "That's when I started to realize that I was actually winning tournaments and that I was enjoying it. I was never like, 'Wow, I'm gonna be pro and I'm gonna make a living out of this,' but that's when I realized that I wanted to do tennis over soccer." Montes won the 2019 Spanish Junior Na- tional Championships, which made him realize it was time to take his tennis to yet another level. He worked with fellow Spaniard Gonzalo Corrales, a Georgia graduate and retired pro MALE ATHLETE OF THE YEAR WINNER WINNER Iñaki Montes Is The Heart of UVA Men's Tennis' Back-To-Back NCAA Championship Runs Montes, who earned top-10 rankings in both singles and doubles this season, helped lead Virginia to its second straight NCAA champi- onship. He put the finishing touches on the Cavaliers' 2023 title run by scoring the clinching point in their victory over Ohio State in the NCAA final. (Photo by Matt Riley/courtesy UVA)