Weber State (4-8) at
UC Irvine (6-4)
Date: Saturday, March 9
Time: 10 a.m. (PST)
Location: Anteater Tennis Stadium - Irvine, Calif.

Match Notes

IRVINE, Calif. - UC Irvine men's tennis has added a match against Weber State on Saturday, March 9. First serve is set for 10 a.m. at Anteater Tennis Stadium.
 
QUICK HITS
• The 'Eaters will be looking to continue their perfect start at home where they are 5-0.
• UC Irvine is set to play six of its eight matches in the month of March in the friendly confines of Anteater Tennis Stadium.
• Noah Zamora has won his last three singles matches including a straight-set victory at No. 3 against 31st-ranked UCLA.
• He is tied with Enrique Luque Rico for the team lead with six dual-match singles wins.
• Andy Nguyen (5-1), Hiroki Sakagawa (5-2) and Rithvik Krishna (5-3) are right behind them with five victories apiece.
• UCI 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 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
Noah Zamora earned a straight-set singles win in UC Irvine's 4-1 loss to No. 31 UCLA Thursday at Los Angeles Tennis Center. After the Bruins took a 3-0 lead, Zamora kept the Anteaters in it with an impressive 6-4, 6-2 victory over Spencer Johnson at No. 3. Zamora improved to 6-2 in dual-match singles. UCI played UCLA tough in doubles, dropping a pair of 6-4 decisions. On court three, Brandon Park and Matthew Sah held an early 3-2 lead before Jeffrey Fradkin/Govind Nanda took the next two games. It went back-and-forth from there with the Bruins coming out on top. It was another tightly-contested battle at No. 2 where Andy Nguyen and Hiroki Sakagawa went toe-to-toe with Johnson/Emon van Loben Sels. The 'Eaters came back from a two-game deficit to knot it up at 4-all before UCLA finished strong for the 6-4 victory. In singles, Enrique Luque Rico fell to 28th-ranked Nanda at the top of the lineup. Rithvik Krishna then came up short against Gianluca Ballotta, 7-6 (3), 6-1. After Zamora's win, the Bruins clinched the 4-1 victory with Jorge Plans Gonzalez's 6-1, 7-5 triumph over Rahul Dhokia at No. 6. Nguyen forced a third set before his match went unfinished at No. 5 (3-6, 6-4, 1-1).
 
SCOUTING THE WILDCATS
Weber State (4-8) suffered its sixth-straight loss with a 6-1 setback at Pacific on Wednesday, March 6. The Wildcats have been on the road for most of the season as they are 0-6 in true away games and 4-0 in neutral-site matches. Jordan Coutinho is tops on the squad with seven singles wins, all of which have come at No. 4. Tristan Sarap, a 2023 All-Big Sky selection, has played most of his matches at the top of the lineup. In doubles, Matteo Savio and Tuan Minh have been impressive at the third position where they own a 10-1 record.
 
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 6-4 with three of his losses coming to No. 28 Govind Nanda of UCLA, 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 44-22 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 5-3 while playing at Nos. 2-5. His five wins are tied for third on the team, while he is also second on the squad with 13 overall victories. Krishna, who is in his third season at UCI, owns an impressive .700 (21-9) 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. The San Diego native is currently on a three-match win streak and owns a 6-2 dual record at Nos. 3-4. In his three seasons at UCI, Zamora is 31-10 (.756).
 
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 51-28 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 35.
 
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. Dhokia made his Anteater debut in doubles on Feb. 25 and in singles on March 5.
 
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. For the 'Eaters, Sakagawa is 5-2 in dual-match singles and 5-3 in doubles alongside freshman Andy Nguyen.
 
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 10-4 overall and 4-2 in dual matches while playing at Nos. 3-5.

UP NEXT
UC Irvine is back at Anteater Tennis Stadium when it hosts Case Western Reserve (March 12) and Columbia (March 15).