Portland (4-2) at
UC Irvine (4-3)
Date: Sunday, March 3
Time: 11 a.m. (PST)
Location: Anteater Tennis Stadium - Irvine, Calif.

Villanova (4-5) at
UC Irvine (4-3)
Date: Tuesday, March 5
Time: 1 p.m. (PST)
Location: Anteater Tennis Stadium - Irvine, Calif.

UC Irvine (4-3) at 
No. 29 UCLA (5-2)
Date: Thursday, March 7
Time: 1 p.m. (PST)
Location: Los Angeles Tennis Center - Los Angeles, Calif.

Match Notes

IRVINE, Calif. - UC Irvine men's tennis has a busy week ahead with three matches in five days. The Anteaters start the stretch with back-to-back home contests, hosting Portland at 11 a.m. on Sunday, March 3, and Villanova at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, March 5. They then make their way to UCLA for a 1 p.m. showdown on Thursday, March 7.
 
QUICK HITS
• UC Irvine is back at Anteater Tennis Stadium for the first time since Jan. 27.
• The 'Eaters played three road matches in February, all against West Coast Conference schools.
• Portland will be UCI's fourth-straight WCC opponent.
• Rithvik Krishna won four consecutive singles matches before his first loss at LMU on Feb. 25.
• Enrique Luque Rico, Hiroki Sakagawa and Noah Zamora are also tied for the team lead with four singles victories apiece.
• 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, and all seven are upperclassmen.
• Each of their four All-Big West selections from a year ago are back for another season.
• Zamora and 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 dropped a narrow 4-3 decision to Loyola Marymount last Sunday, Feb. 25, at LMU Tennis Center. The Anteaters held the early advantage in doubles as graduate transfer Rahul Dhokia, who was making his Anteater debut, teamed up with Noah Zamora for a 6-3 victory over Alex Padro Parra/Toky Ranaivo at No. 2. The Lions responded with wins at one and three for the 1-0 lead. Zamora was first off the court in singles, tying the team score with a 6-4, 6-4 triumph over Max Wuelfing at the fourth position. It continued to go back-and-forth as Rithvik Krishna was handed his first loss of the dual-match season at No. 3, before Hiroki Sakagawa brought the 'Eaters even again by dispatching Sebastian Nothhaft, 6-3, 6-2, at No. 2. LMU then clinched the match with three-set victories at Nos. 5 and 1. Ali Amiri played out his match at No. 6 and came from behind to upend Padro Parra, 3-6, 6-0, 7-6.
 
SCOUTING THE PILOTS
Portland (4-2) won both of its matches last weekend, defeating Eastern Washington, 7-0, and Montana State, 6-1. Oscar Brown is 4-1 at the top of the lineup, while Nikola Keremedchiev is 5-0 at Nos. 4 and 5. Nikolas Tvedt and Luka Vokovic have played every match at No. 1 doubles where they own a 3-2 record.
 
SCOUTING THE WILDCATS
Villanova dropped to 4-5 on the season after a 6-1 loss at UC San Diego on Thursday, Feb. 29. The Wildcats will play Ball State in La Jolla on Sunday, March 3, before making their way to Irvine. Josh Robinson has played every match at the top of the lineup where he has five wins. Eitan Khromchenko leads the team with seven victories at Nos. 4-6.
 
SCOUTING THE BRUINS
No. 29 UCLA (5-2) is riding a five-match win streak after defeating UNLV, 6-1, last Sunday, Feb. 25. Spencer Johnson leads the Bruins with a 6-1 dual-match record. He is unbeaten at Nos. 2-5. Govind Nanda is also 4-1 at No. 1 singles. In doubles, Johnson has teamed up with Emon van Loben Sels to go 4-0 at No. 2. 
 
FROM THE TOP
Graduate student Enrique Luque Rico transferred to UCI from Pepperdine prior to the 2022-23 campaign and has been a steady force at the top of the singles lineup for the Anteaters since his arrival. This season, he is 4-3 with two of his three losses coming to No. 42 Christian Lerby of Santa Clara and former All-American Stefan Dostanic of then seventh-ranked USC. Last year, Luque Rico went 10-6 in dual matches including an 8-3 mark at No. 1 to earn first-team All-Big West honors. Over his collegiate career, he owns a 37-21 dual-match singles record.
 
WIN NO. 20
In just his 26th decision in his collegiate dual-match career, junior Rithvik Krishna recorded his 20th career win. This year, Krishna has gone 4-1 since making his 2024 season debut against BYU on Jan. 26. His four wins are tied for the team lead, while he is also tops on the squad with 12 overall victories. Krishna, who is in his third season at UCI, has played from No. 3 to No. 6 and owns an impressive .741 (20-7) win percentage. Last year, he earned an All-Big West honorable mention nod.
 
BIG WEST DOMINANCE
Junior Noah Zamora is 12-1 against Big West opponents. In 2023, 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 28-10 dual-match singles record.
 
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 49-27 dual-match record. Amiri is finishing up his undergraduate degree in biological sciences, while Sah is in the Master of Software Engineering program. Sah is the Anteaters' active doubles wins leader at 33.
 
SEASONED NEWCOMERS
UCI bolstered its roster with the addition of three newcomers, including two graduate transfers. Rahul Dhokia comes to Irvine 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. As an Anteater, Nguyen is 9-4 overall and 3-2 in dual matches while playing at Nos. 4 and 5.
 
UP NEXT
UC Irvine is back at Anteater Tennis Stadium when it hosts Case Western Reserve (March 12) and Columbia (March 15).