BYU (1-1) at
UC Irvine (1-1)
Date: Friday, Jan. 26
Time: 11 a.m. (PST)
Location: Anteater Tennis Stadium - Irvine, Calif.

San Diego State (2-0) at
UC Irvine (1-1)
Date: Saturday, Jan. 27
Time: 12 p.m. (PST)
Location: Anteater Tennis Stadium - Irvine, Calif.

Match Notes

IRVINE, Calif. - UC Irvine men's tennis is home for two matches this weekend, starting with an 11 a.m. showdown against BYU on Friday, Jan. 26. UCI then welcomes San Diego State to Anteater Tennis Stadium on Saturday, Jan. 27, for a 12 p.m. tilt.
 
STORYLINES
• UC Irvine won the Big West tournament in 2022 and claimed a share of the Big West regular-season title in 2023.
• The Anteaters have seven returning letterwinners, all of who are upperclassmen.
• 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.
 
LAST TIME OUT
UC Irvine put up a good fight at No. 7 USC but was unable to get on the board in a 7-0 loss last Friday at Marks Stadium. The Anteaters led on all three doubles courts before the nationally-ranked Trojans came back to take the early 1-0 advantage. At the second position, Enrique Luque Rico and Matthew Sah were locked in a back-and-forth battle with Volodymyr Iakubenko/Samuel Rubbell. The 'Eaters held a late 5-4 edge but USC pulled out the next three games for the 7-5 victory. Brandon Park and Noah Zamora came out firing as they had all the momentum, going up 5-0 on Peter Makk/Lodewijk Weststrate at the top of the lineup. With their backs against the wall, the Trojans' No. 1 pair found a way to erase the deficit and clinch the doubles point with a 7-5 win. In singles, Andy Nguyen went the distance against Iakubenko at No. 4, while Zamora and Hiroki Sakagawa both pushed their ranked opponents to a second-set tiebreaker.
 
SEASON-OPENING DUB
On Thursday, Jan. 18, UC Irvine opened the 2024 dual-match season with a 7-0 win over Westcliff University, which was ranked seventh in the NAIA Preseason Poll. The Anteaters got out to a strong start in doubles with Enrique Luque Rico and Matthew Sah making quick work of Maxence Kupfert/Alex Melgar, 6-1, at No. 2. Brandon Park and Noah Zamora then clinched the team point with a 6-3 victory over Max Mueller/Felix Veyhle on court one. UCI carried the momentum into singles where it won five of the six matches in straight sets.
 
SCOUTING THE COUGARS
BYU (1-1) returns to Southern California after splitting a pair of matches in San Diego last week. The Cougars opened the season with a narrow 4-3 loss to San Diego State before defeating UC San Diego, 5-2. Senior Jack Barnett and sophomore Redd Owen are undefeated early in dual-match play. Barnett, an All-West Coast Conference selection, went 2-0 at No. 1 singles, while Owen did the same at No. 4. They also teamed up to win both their matches at No. 2 doubles.
 
SCOUTING THE AZTECS
San Diego State (2-0) kicked off its 2024 campaign at home, defeating BYU, 4-3, and Sacramento State, 4-1. The Aztecs were dominant in doubles, winning four of the five decisions last week. In singles, Robin Parts and Alexander Mandma went 2-0 at Nos. 5 and 6, respectively. Seniors Johannes Seeman and Chikaya Sato both earned All-Mountain West honors in singles and doubles last year.

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 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 third season at UCI, the San Diego native owns a 25-9 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 34-19 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 46-25 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 from 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 individuals from the Southern California area and three international student-athletes. The 'Eaters have had multiple international student-athletes every year since 2014-15.
 
UP NEXT
UC Irvine will head to Northern California to face San Francisco (Feb. 10) and Santa Clara (Feb. 11).