The No. 44 UC Irvine Men’s Tennis team (18-6, 5-1) fell to the No. 7 University of San Diego Toreros (25-3, 7-0) of the West Coast Conference in the first round of the NCAA men’s tennis tournament at the Hogan Tennis Center in San Diego, with 575 people in attendance on May 3.
UC Irvine finished 5-1 in conference play, making them the second seed in the Big West Men’s Tennis championship, which was played at the Barnes Tennis Center in San Diego.
The Anteaters began their postseason play in the Big West quarterfinals against UC Riverside on April 25. UCI easily defeated UCR 4-0, as not a single matchup went to more than two sets.
On April 26, the ‘Eaters defeated the UC Davis Aggies in the Big West semifinals in a match that ended 4-3. The Aggies started strong with a doubles win and two victories in the singles portion; however, UC Irvine came back with four straight singles victories.
“I think what really got me through the match were my teammates, just playing for not only myself but for my team and for my coaches,” sophomore Andy Nguyen said at the postgame press conference on April 26.
The Anteater’s signature team victory of the season came on April 27 against No. 34 UC Santa Barbara. UCSB started with a 2-0 lead; however, the ‘Eaters were able to win the next three singles matches to make it 3-2. The Gauchos won the next singles match to tie the dual at 3, but No. 70 senior Noah Zamora won a three-set singles match to take the dual 4-3.
UC Irvine claimed its second straight Big West championship following the victory in the dual, giving the Anteaters an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.
On April 28, the 2024 NCAA Men’s Tennis tournament bracket was revealed on NCAA.com. This season, two Big West teams qualified for the 64-team tournament. Other than the Anteaters, UC Santa Barbara also qualified as a result of its high national ranking.
The ‘Eaters began their fourth postseason dual against San Diego about five miles west of where they won their Big West championship six days earlier.
In the doubles portion on Court 2, the Toreros were victorious first with a 6-3 win by freshman Adrien Berrut and graduate student Savriyan Danilov over graduate student Sohrob Amiryavari and freshman Ruining Huang.
Court 3 saw San Diego graduate student Blake Kasday and redshirt junior Nikhil Niranjan defeat senior Rithvik Krishna and sophomore Max Fardanesh 6-2. This victory put the Toreros up 1-0 in the dual.
In singles on Court 3, USD redshirt junior Stian Klaassen defeated Krishna 6-3 in the first set and 6-0 in the second to put the Toreros up 2-0.
On Court 6, UCI’s Amiryavari defeated Kasday 6-2 in the first set and 6-2 in the second. The win made the score 2-1 San Diego, and it was the first point that UCI scored in the NCAA tournament since 2011.
On Court 4, San Diego junior Neo Niedner defeated Huang in a close first set, 7-5 and a less competitive second set 6-2.
With their backs against elimination, Nguyen defeated No. 83 Danilov in a very close match. He won the first set 7-5 and the second set 6-4 to make the score 3-2 for San Diego.
However, the ‘Eaters’ season came to an end as No. 65 Zamora fell to No. 3 junior Oliver Tarvet in a hotly contested first set 7-5. Tarvet was able to close out the second set 6-1.
Zamora was a large part of the Anteaters’ success this season and could have been considered a top-32 player in the nation at one point, but the third-ranked player was too much to handle in what would be his final collegiate dual.
Despite Zamora reaching the round of 32 in the NCAA individual championship in the fall, a second straight Big West championship and their strongest NCAA tournament showing since 1995, the UC Irvine Men’s Tennis season came to an end. The men’s tennis team was the first UC Irvine team this academic year to reach the NCAA tournament.
Jack Fedor is the 2024-25 Assistant Sports Editor. He can be reached at jfedor@uci.edu.
Edited by Benjamin Flores and Jaheem Conley.