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Tempe, AZ – College tennis is back as campuses welcome back students across the country for the start of the 2025-26 academic year and college tennis season. In part of the second year of a two-year pilot by the NCAA to host the NCAA Individual Championships in the fall semester, these next few months will once again hold much importance to individuals and teams alike as they look to qualify for the Championship in Orlando this November.
With the level of college tennis never being higher, several impactful players in the 2024-25 college tennis season will make their return this season while numerous highly-touted newcomers will look to make a splash this season when they arrive on campus. For more information around some of the names to keep an eye on this season, take a look at today’s ITA Division I Men’s Collegiate Tennis Preseason Singles and Doubles Rankings as well as Newcomer Rankings.
Making his return to Columbia for his senior season, Michael Zheng will start the season as the No. 1 ranked singles player in the country. As the 2024-25 NCAA Singles Champion, Zheng is a three-time ITA All-American and two-time Ivy League Player of the Year. Coming off an impressive summer in which he claimed his first ATP Challenger Tour title in Chicago, Zheng enters the 2025-26 season ranked No. 321 in the ATP Singles Rankings.
In the ITA Preseason Doubles Rankings, the Mississippi State pairing of Petar Jovanovic and Benito Sanchez Martinez will claim the top spot after an impressive 2024-25 season together. Spending two weeks atop the ITA Doubles Rankings this past spring, the pairing ended the past season winning 17 consecutive matches and finished with a 22-1 record as a team, including an unbeaten record in SEC play.
Across the newcomer rankings, Illinois incoming freshman Gabriel Debru will claim the No. 1 newcomer rank in today’s ITA Rankings. From Grenoble, France, Debru has career-high ATP rankings of No. 233 in singles and No. 273 in doubles and was the 2022 Roland-Garros Junior Singles Champion. He will join Adam Jilly (No. 10) and Hayden Jones (No. 11) as Illinois newcomers in the the ITA Newcomer Rankings.
Continue reading or click the links below to see the complete national preseason and newcomer rankings.
