Men's Tennis Set to Face UC Davis in Regular Season Finale

Saturday, April 19

Irvine, Calif.

10:00 AM

UC Irvine

UC Davis

Men's Tennis Set to Face UC Davis in Regular Season Finale

April 18, 2025 | Men's Tennis

UC Davis (12-5, 3-1 Big West) at
No. 46 UC Irvine (14-5, 4-1 Big West)
Date: Saturday, April 19
Time: 10 a.m. (PDT)
Location: Anteater Tennis Stadium - Irvine, Calif.

Match Notes

IRVINE, Calif. - The 46th-ranked UC Irvine men's tennis team is set to host UC Davis in its regular-season finale at 10 a.m. on Saturday, April 19. The Anteaters will recognize their four graduating seniors - Rithvik Krishna, Hiroki Sakagawa, Lawee Sherif and Noah Zamora - following the match.

ANTEATER TIDBITS
• UCI (4-1) is second in the Big West standings, sitting one game back of UC Santa Barbara (5-0).
• The 'Eaters have been among the top-50 in the ITA Rankings since Feb. 20, and came in as high as No. 36 this season.
• UC Irvine is 14-5 with all five of their losses coming to teams that have been ranked in the top-40 this year.
• Andy Nguyen (2) and Noah Zamora (1) won three-straight Big West Player of the Week awards from March 12-19.
• Nguyen is tops on the squad with a 13-2 singles record and is unbeaten in his last 15 outings where he is 12-0.

AMONG THE BEST IN THE NATION
Senior Noah Zamora came in at No. 67 in the latest NCAA Division I men's singles rankings released by the ITA on April 15. 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, Zamora/Andy Nguyen, who are ranked 87th in the nation, 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 owns a team-best 13-2 dual match singles record. His two losses came against No. 20 UCLA (Jan. 17) and at USC (Jan. 20). Since falling against the Trojans, Nguyen has gone 12-0 with three matches that went unfinished, and has dropped only two sets during that stretch. The Long Beach native 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 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.

BIG WEST DOMINANCE
Senior Noah Zamora has been dominant in Big West play with a 21-1 career record. He is unbeaten in his last 28 outings against conference foes (including postseason) where he is 20-0 with eight 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. The San Diego native also earned his third career Big West Player of the Week award on March 19. This season, he is 9-4 in singles and 8-5 in doubles.

LAST TIME OUT
No. 46 UC Irvine came up short against No. 43 UC Santa Barbara, 4-0, in a battle between the top-two teams in the Big West last Saturday at Anteater Tennis Stadium. The Gauchos took sole possession of first place in the conference standings and clinched a share of the regular season title. UCSB started the afternoon by winning a hard-fought doubles point. Max Fardanesh and Rithvik Krishna upended Diogo Morais/Sam Rappaport, 6-3, at the third position to bring the 'Eaters even, but the visitors pulled out a 6-4 triumph on court one to clinch the point. UC Santa Barbara carried the momentum into singles where it won at Nos. 4, 3 and 6 to secure the team victory. Noah Zamora was on his way to his sixth ranked win of the season as he was up 6-4, 1-6, 4-1 on No. 79 Gianluca Brunkow when their match was abandoned at the top of the lineup.

SCOUTING THE AGGIES
UC Davis (12-5, 3-1 Big West) is coming off a 4-2 win over Cal Poly last Saturday, April 12. The Aggies will head to UC Riverside for a Friday afternoon match before making their way to Irvine. Lucas Bollinger leads UCD in singles where he is 13-3 while playing primarily at No. 2. Ryan Torres and Ivan Savkin have paced UC Davis in doubles with a team-best 9-5 record. UCI has won seven in a row against the Aggies with its last loss in the series coming on April 20, 2018.

CONFERENCE STANDINGS
UC Irvine (4-1) can clinch the No. 2 seed in the upcoming Big West Championships with a win over UC Davis (3-1) on Saturday. The Anteaters are also still in the running for a share of the regular-season title but would need a UC Santa Barbara loss to Cal Poly in addition to a victory against the Aggies. The Gauchos (5-0) have already secured a share of the Big West regular season championship and the tournament's No. 1 seed as they hold the head-to-head tiebreaker over both UCI and UCD.

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. 28 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 61-27 dual match record. Individually, all three have at least 25 overall singles wins. Zamora leads the way at 67-29 (48-16 dual), while Krishna is 50-28 (34-17 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.

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, and sophomore transfer Max Fardanesh (UC Davis) are tied for third on the team with eight dual-match singles victories each. Six of Fardanesh's eight wins have been match-clinchers. Graduate transfer Sohrob Amiryavari (UNLV) is also 6-5, while 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 will head to the Barnes Tennis Center in San Diego for the Big West Championships, April 25-27.