California Irvine Athletics

No. 45 UC Irvine (11-4, 1-0 Big West) at
UC Riverside (2-12, 0-1 Big West)
Date: Tuesday, April 1
Time: 12 p.m. (PDT)
Location: SRC Tennis Courts - Riverside, Calif.

No. 45 UC Irvine (11-4, 1-0 Big West) at
Cal Poly (7-10, 1-1 Big West)
Date: Sunday, April 6
Time: 11 a.m. (PDT)
Location: Ronca Tennis Center - San Luis Obispo, Calif.

Match Notes

IRVINE, Calif. - The 45th-ranked UC Irvine men's tennis team stays on the road for Big West play this week, starting with a 12 p.m. match at UC Riverside on Tuesday, April 1. The Anteaters will then make their way to Cal Poly for an 11 a.m. showdown on Sunday, April 6.

ANTEATER TIDBITS
• UC Irvine came in at No. 45 in the ITA Division I Men's Top 75 Team Rankings released on April 1.
• The Anteaters have been among the top-50 since Feb. 20, and were ranked as high as No. 36 this season.
• The 'Eaters are 11-4 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) won three-straight Big West Player of the Week awards.
• Nguyen is tops on the squad with a 10-2 singles record and is unbeaten in his last 11 outings where he is 9-0.
• Zamora is 59th in the latest ITA national singles rankings.

AMONG THE BEST IN THE NATION
Senior Noah Zamora came in at No. 59 in the latest NCAA Division I men's singles rankings released by the ITA on April 1. Zamora picked up his fifth ranked win of the 2024-25 season after taking down No. 107 Azuma Visaya of Hawai'i, 6-3, 6-4. 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, 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 11 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. In 2024, 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 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 7-4 in singles and 6-4 in doubles.

LAST TIME OUT
No. 43 UC Irvine won its Big West opener on the road, taking down Hawai'i, 4-1, last Saturday at the UH Tennis Complex. The Anteaters improved to 11-5 overall and are 1-0 in conference play for the fourth-straight year. The Rainbow Warriors took the early lead after clinching the doubles point. The 'Eaters bounced back in singles, winning the first set on all six courts. At the fifth position, Sohrob Amiryavari ran away with a 6-3 victory over Diego Dalisay, who then retired. Max Fardanesh dispatched Sohta Urano, 6-1, 6-3, at No. 6 to give UCI a 2-1 advantage. UC Irvine kept rolling with Ruining Huang upending Andy Hernandez, 6-3, 6-2, at the fourth spot. No. 58 Noah Zamora then delivered the final point with a 6-3, 6-4 victory over No. 107 Azuma Visaya on court one. Andy Nguyen was on the verge of earning his 10th-straight win as he was up 6-4, 6-5 on Quinn Snyder at No. 2 when the match was clinched. Rithvik Krishna also held a 6-3, 2-6, 3-0 lead over Karl Collins at No. 3.

SCOUTING THE HIGHLANDERS
UC Riverside (2-12, 0-1 Big West) is on a four-match losing streak, most recently falling at UC San Diego, 4-0, on March 26. Justin Lamy has played No. 1 singles for the Highlanders where he is 4-7, while Ryan Huynh owns a team-best five dual-match singles wins, all of which have come at No. 6. Lamy/Huynh have also teamed up at No. 1 doubles where they are 3-3.

SCOUTING THE MUSTANGS
Cal Poly (7-10, 1-1 Big West) split a pair of non-conference matches last week in Phoenix, falling at GCU, 4-1, before defeating Seattle U, 4-0. Raz Haviv (2-9) and Bastiaan Westsrate (8-7) have combined to play a majority of the Mustangs' matches at No. 1 and No. 2 singles. The Anteaters have won four in a row against Cal Poly with their last loss in the series coming on April 3, 2022.

CRUNCH TIME
UC Irvine was trailing 3-2 in a pair of 4-3 victories this season. At Pepperdine (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. On March 22, 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 58-26 dual match record. Individually, all three have at least 25 overall singles wins. Zamora leads the way at 65-29 (46-16 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 a 19-1 career record. He is unbeaten in his last 24 outings against conference foes (including postseason) where he is 18-0 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 six dual-match singles victories. Graduate transfer Sohrob Amiryavari (UNLV) and sophomore transfer Max Fardanesh (UC Davis) also have five 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 returns to Anteater Stadium on Wednesday, April 9, when it hosts UC San Diego at 2 p.m.