California Irvine Athletics

No. 43 UC Irvine (10-4, 0-0 Big West) at
Hawai'i (3-14, 0-3 Big West)
Date: Saturday, March 29
Time: 4 p.m. (HT) / 7 p.m. (PT)
Location: UH Tennis Complex - Honolulu, O'ahu

Match Notes | Live Scoring

IRVINE, Calif. - The 43rd-ranked UC Irvine men's tennis team makes the trek to Hawai'i for its Big West opener on Saturday, March 29. First serve is scheduled for 4 p.m. (HT)/7 p.m. (PT).

ANTEATER TIDBITS
• UC Irvine came in at No. 43 in the ITA Division I Men's Top 75 Team Rankings released on March 25.
• The Anteaters have been among the top-50 since Feb. 20, and were ranked as high as No. 36 this season.
• The 'Eaters are 10-4 with all four of their losses coming to teams that have been ranked in the top-25 this year.
• Andy Nguyen (March 12 & 26) and Noah Zamora (March 19) have won the last three Big West Player of the Week awards.
• Nguyen is tops on the squad with a 10-2 singles record and has won nine in a row with his last loss coming on Jan. 20.
• Zamora is 58th in the latest ITA national singles rankings, while Zamora/Nguyen are 82nd in doubles.

AMONG THE BEST IN THE NATION
Senior Noah Zamora came in at No. 58 in the latest NCAA Division I men's singles rankings released by the ITA on March 18. Zamora picked up his fourth ranked win of the 2024-25 season after taking down No. 99 Tiago Silva of Pacific, 6-7 (3), 6-2, 6-4, on Feb. 7. During the fall, he was the first Anteater to compete in the NCAA Singles Championships since 2011, and the first to advance in the tournament since 1989 as he upset No. 13 Sebastian Dominko of Notre Dame in the Round of 64. Zamora, who punched his NCAA ticket with a runner-up showing at the ITA Southwest Regional, also defeated No. 64 Miguel Perez (Georgia) and No. 109 Casper Christensen (Arizona) in the fall. As a duo, No. 82 Andy Nguyen/Noah Zamora earned a signature 6-3 win over then No. 10 Alexander Hoogmartens/Aadarsh Tripathi of UCLA in the opener on Jan. 17. 

NGUYEN WINS
Andy Nguyen earned his second Big West Player of the Week award on March 26 after going 2-0 in singles against No. 62 Dartmouth and No. 10 Harvard. Nguyen is unbeaten in his last 10 outings (9-0) with his last loss coming on Jan. 20. He is tops on the squad with a 10-2 record. All 10 of his wins this season have come in straight sets. The Long Beach native took home the Anteaters' first award of the season on March 12, following a 5-0 week where he picked up two singles and three doubles victories against Temple, Villanova and LMU. During the fall, Nguyen also defeated a pair of ranked opponents, upsetting No. 52 Iiro Vasa of San Diego and No. 125 Nicholas Godsick of Stanford. Last year, Nguyen was the Big West Freshman of the Year and an all-conference selection in both singles and doubles.

MORE ACCOLADES
Noah Zamora earned his first Big West Player of the Week award this season, and third of his career, on March 19. In a 6-1 victory over Navy, Zamora teamed up with Nguyen at No. 1 doubles where the then 90th-ranked duo saved match point before closing out the decisive 7-6 (5) win. Zamora then took down Herrick Legaspi, 6-4, 6-4, at the top of the singles lineup for his fifth consecutive victory. The San Diego native is 6-4 in singles and 6-3 in doubles.

DOUBLE UP
Andy Nguyen and Noah Zamora are ranked 82nd in the nation in doubles. The duo owns a team-best 6-3 record at the top of the lineup. Nguyen/Zamora are unbeaten in their last nine outings where they are 5-0 with four matches that went unfinished.

LAST TIME OUT
Then No. 45 UC Irvine saw its six-match win streak come to an end with a 6-1 loss to 10th-ranked Harvard this past Sunday at Anteater Tennis Stadium. Andy Nguyen earned UCI's point with his ninth-straight singles victory. Nguyen took down Valdemar Pape, 6-3, 6-4, on court two. He has not dropped a set since Feb. 20. The Crimson won at Nos. 2 and 3 to claim the doubles point. Nguyen/Noah Zamora were up 5-4 against No. 89 David Lins/Daniel Milavsky at the top of the lineup. Harvard went on to clinch the victory with singles wins on courts 5, 6 and 4.

SCOUTING THE RAINBOW WARRIORS
Hawai'i (3-14, 0-3 Big West) is on a seven-match losing streak, most recently falling at Cal Poly, 4-0, in conference action last Saturday. Senior Quinn Snyder leads the Rainbow Warriors with a perfect 10-0 singles record while playing primarily at No. 2. Junior transfer Azuma Visaya, who spent the last two years at UCLA, is a three-time Big West Player of the Week this season and is tied for second on the team with five singles wins, all coming at the top of the lineup. Karl Collins also has five victories at Nos. 2 and 3.

The 'Eaters have won their last 12 meetings with Hawai'i, including a 4-1 victory in last year's regular-season finale at Anteater Tennis Stadium (April 20, 2024). UCI has not lost to UH since 2014.

CRUNCH TIME
UC Irvine was trailing 3-2 in a pair of 4-3 victories this season. At Pepperdine on Jan. 18, Rithvik Krishna kept UCI alive, outlasting Lasse Poertner, 7-5, 3-6, 7-5, at the fourth spot. Hiroki Sakagawa then delivered the match-clincher, taking down Aleksa Pisanic, 7-6 (6), 6-4, at No. 3. The 'Eaters ended a 23-match drought in the all-time series with their first win over the Waves since 1992. Pepperdine came in at No. 19 in the latest ITA Rankings. Last Saturday, Noah Zamora and Lawee Sherif played the heroes against No. 62 Dartmouth. Zamora brought the Anteaters even with a 5-7, 6-4, 7-5 triumph at the top of the lineup, while Sherif battled through an injury to take down Yujiro Onuma, 7-5, 6-7 (6), 6-4, to secure UCI's sixth-straight win.

LEAVING A LEGACY
Fourth-year seniors Noah Zamora, Rithvik Krishna and Lawee Sherif are looking to add to their legacy in 2025. The trio helped the Anteaters to a pair of Big West Championships (2022, 2024) and a co-Big West regular-season title (2023) in their first three years at UCI. Since their arrival in 2021-22, the 'Eaters have boasted a 57-26 dual match record. Individually, all three have at least 25 overall singles wins. Zamora leads the way at 64-29 (45-16 dual), while Krishna is 49-27 (33-16 dual). Sherif, who had a career-high 17 victories last season, rounds out the group with 29 wins (21 dual). Zamora is a three-time All-Big West selection, while Krishna earned all-conference honors as a sophomore and junior.

BIG WEST DOMINANCE
Noah Zamora has been dominant in Big West play with an 18-1 career record. He is unbeaten in his last 23 outings against conference foes (including postseason) where he is 17-0 with six matches that went unfinished. The only Big West loss of his career came against Cal Poly on April 3, 2022. Zamora is a three-time all-conference selection in both singles and doubles, and he was named the 2022 Big West Freshman of the Year. 

ENTERING THE MIX
UC Irvine has four newcomers with two transfers and a pair of true freshmen. Ruining Huang, a freshman from Hangzhou, Zhejuang, China, is fourth on the team with five dual-match singles victories. Graduate transfer Sohrob Amiryavari (UNLV) and sophomore transfer Max Fardanesh (UC Davis) also have four singles wins each, while freshman Mason Bui, a four-star recruit out of Yorba Linda High School, made his collegiate dual match debut with a straight-set triumph at No. 6 on March 4.

UP NEXT
UCI stays on the road next week as it continues Big West play at UC Riverside (April 1) and at Cal Poly (April 6).