Westcliff (0-0) at
UC Irvine (0-0)
Date: Thursday, Jan. 18
Time: 12 p.m. (PST)
Location: Anteater Tennis Stadium - Irvine, Calif.

UC Irvine (0-0) at
No. 7 USC (0-0)
Date: Saturday, Jan. 20
Time: 10 a.m. (PST)
Location: Marks Stadium - Los Angeles, Calif.

IRVINE, Calif. - The UC Irvine men's tennis team is set to open the 2024 campaign with two ranked opponents. The Anteaters will host Westcliff, which is seventh in the NAIA Preseason Top-25, in their season-opener Thursday, Jan. 18, at 12 p.m. UCI then makes its way to No. 7 USC for a 10 a.m. showdown on Saturday, Jan. 20.
 
The 'Eaters welcome back seven letterwinners from last year's squad that went 13-8 overall and 5-1 in conference to claim a share of the Big West regular-season title. All seven returners are upperclassmen and five of them have earned All-Big West honors in their UCI careers.
 
"Experience can win matches, and often does," said ninth-year head coach Mike Saunders. ""It also helps galvanize team culture, but more than anything, teams with experience tend to improve and grow. This is a team that is inspired to get better every day."
 
STORYLINES
• The Anteaters have a streak of six consecutive winning seasons.
• UC Irvine won the Big West tournament in 2022 and claimed a share of the Big West regular-season title in 2023.
• All four of UCI's All-Big West selections from a year ago are back for another season.
• Noah Zamora and Enrique Luque Rico earned first-team all-conference honors in singles.
• In addition, Zamora paired up with Brandon Park for a first-team All-Big West nod in doubles.
• Park (Second Team) and Rithvik Krishna (Honorable Mention) also made the all-conference team in singles.
• In their Division I history, the 'Eaters have made 12 NCAA Tournament appearances.
• They have placed first in the Big West standings 17 times and won four Big West Tournament titles.
• UC Irvine has been named an ITA All-Academic Team (minimum 3.2 team GPA) in each of the last seven years.
 
SCOUTING THE WARRIORS
Westcliff (0-0) was ranked seventh in the NAIA Preseason Top-25. Last year, the Warriors won both the Golden State Athletic Conference regular-season and tournament titles before advancing to the quarterfinals of the NAIA Tennis Championships. They finished the campaign with a 15-4 overall record. Westcliff returns seven letterwinners from its 2023 squad, led by Felix Veyhle who was a first-team All-GSAC selection. UC Irvine and Westcliff met for the first time last year with the Anteaters taking the 6-1 victory.
 
SCOUTING THE TROJANS
No. 7 USC (0-0) returns five letterwinners from a 2023 squad that went 21-8, won the Pac-12 Championship and advanced to the NCAA Round of 16. Graduate student Stefan Dostanic is back to lead the Trojans after earning first-team all-conference honors and finishing the year ranked 22nd in the nation. Dostanic, an Irvine native, owns a 57-17 career dual-match singles record.
 
FALL RECAP
UC Irvine finished the fall tournament season with a combined 50-28 (.641) singles record. Rithvik Krishna and Noah Zamora tied for the team lead with eight singles wins each, while Hiroki Sakagawa and Lawee Sherif were right behind them with identical 7-3 marks. Andy Nguyen was also an impressive 6-2 in his collegiate debut. In addition, Ali Amiri had UCI's first ranked win of the season, taking down No. 53 Noah Berry of Cal Poly, 2-6, 7-6 (5), 6-4, at the ITA Southwest Regional Championships.

BIG WEST DOMINANCE
Junior Noah Zamora is 12-1 against Big West opponents. Last year, he went unbeaten in his last 15 outings where he was 11-0 with four matches that went unfinished. During that stretch, he was 6-0 against Big West foes. Zamora is a two-time all-conference selection in both singles and doubles, and was named the 2022 Big West Freshman of the Year. In his two seasons at UCI, the San Diego native owns a 24-8 dual-match singles record.
 
FROM THE TOP
Graduate student Enrique Luque Rico transferred to UC Irvine from Pepperdine prior to the 2022-23 campaign. In his first year with the Anteaters, Luque Rico went 10-6 in dual-match singles and was 8-3 at the top of the lineup. The first-team All-Big West selection owns a 33-18 dual-match singles record in his collegiate career.
 
YEAR FIVE
UC Irvine has a veteran squad led by fifth-year seniors Ali Amiri and Matthew Sah. Amiri and Sah have come a long way from seeing their freshman dual-match season canceled in response to the COVID-19 pandemic to becoming Big West champions in each of the last two years. During their UCI careers, the 'Eaters have boasted a 45-24 dual-match record. Amiri is finishing up his undergraduate degree in biological sciences, while Sah is in the Master of Software Engineering program.
 
INSTANT CHEMISTRY
Brandon Park and Noah Zamora found instant chemistry on the court last year. The first-team All-Big West duo made their debut as a tandem on Feb. 18, 2023, and proceeded to win six-straight at the top of the lineup. Park/Zamora finished the campaign with a 12-4 record.
 
SEASONED NEWCOMERS
UCI bolstered its roster with the addition of three newcomers, including two graduate transfers. Rahul Dhokia comes to UCI from Texas A&M where he owned a 22-8 overall singles record in two seasons. He spent his first two years at Baylor and was a member of the Bears' 2021 Big 12 Champion and NCAA Finalist team. Hiroki Sakagawa joins the Anteaters after four years at the University of Arizona. In 2022 and 2023, the Wildcats won back-to-back Pac-12 regular-season titles.
 
BLUE CHIP
Freshman Andy Nguyen rounds out UC Irvine's trio of newcomers. Nguyen is a blue-chip recruit out of Millikan High School in Long Beach. He was the CIF-Southern Section individual champion in 2022, while he also led the Rams to the CIF Division 4 team title in 2021. Nguyen was ranked eighth in California and 18th in the nation according to Tennis Recruiting.
 
LOCAL AND INTERNATIONAL FLAIR
UC Irvine's 10-man roster is comprised of seven student-athletes from the Southern California area, including Ali Amiri and Rithvik Krishna, who are both from Irvine. Three international student-athletes - Rahul Dhokia (England), Enrique Luque Rico (Spain) and Hiroki Sakagawa (Japan) - round out UCI's roster. The 'Eaters have had multiple international student-athletes every year since 2014-15.

UP NEXT
UC Irvine will be back at Anteater Tennis Stadium for two matches next weekend as it hosts BYU on Friday, Jan. 26, and San Diego State on Saturday, Jan. 27.