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CLAREMONT, Calif. – The final week of the Division III season saw standout performances and historic accomplishments, as the top teams and talent in the country met at the NCAA Championships at Claremont-Mudd-Scripps’ Biszantz Family Tennis Center.
The tournament wrapped Tuesday afternoon with the conclusion of the individual singles and doubles championships, as host CMS saw two of their own hoist a national title, while UChicago grabbed its first Men’s doubles title in team history and Babson repeated as back-to-back Women’s champions.
Here’s a full breakdown from all the action on the quest to a national title.
Recapping the Men’s and Women’s Division III Team Championships
Men’s singles champion – Advik Mareedu, Claremont-Mudd-ScrippsThe No. 1 seed in the Men’s singles bracket, Advik Mareedu was a force to be reckoned with all week. He cruised through the tournament without having to play a third set to wrap up arguably the most dominant singles season in Division III history. Mareedu, a junior from Yorba Linda, California, went a perfect 5-0 en route to his first career national championship, defeating Denison’s Kael Shah (6-0, 6-1) in the final on Monday afternoon.
Earlier in the week, he broke the CMS single-season school record for wins with 38. When it was all said and done, Mareedu made his way past Gage Gohl (Gustavus Adolphus/6-4, 7-5), Jacob Patterson (Denison/6-1, 6-1), Andreas Sillaste (Amherst/6-3, 6-2) and Noah Laber (Middlebury/6-4, 6-2) before downing Shah in the final in straight sets.
Mareedu finished his season at 41-1 overall, including a 35-0 stretch against his DIII peers. In addition to his national title, he also swept the ITA Cup singles title earlier in the year, dropping just four sets all season to DIII opponents.
He’ll return for his senior campaign with 101 career singles wins under his belt, thanks to back-to-back 30-win seasons in his first two years and his 41-win feat as a junior.
Women’s singles champion – Lindsay Eisenman, Claremont-Mudd-ScrippsFor the first time since 2011, CMS has a Women’s individual national champion. Lindsay Eisenman emerged in three sets, upending Wesleyan’s Jacqueline Soloveychik, 6-1, 6-7 (5-7), 6-4, to win Tuesday afternoon’s final. She’s just the second national champion in team history, joining Kristin Lim, who won 14 seasons ago.
It was a back-and-forth affair at the Biszantz Family Tennis Center. Eisenman took the first set with ease before Soloveychik rallied to win the second in a tiebreaker. Eisenman, the No. 8 seed this week in Claremont, erased a 2-0 deficit in the third and overcame a 4-4 tie, holding serve on the final two points of the match to win the title.
En route to her first national championship, Eisenman took down a pair of top-five seeds in No. 2 Emily Kantrovitz (Emory/6-1, 6-4) in the semis before seeing No. 5 Soloveychik in the final.
With CMS’ Advik Mareedu winning the Men’s singles title on Monday, CMS became the first program to win both the Men’s and Women’s singles title since 2019, when Emory’s Jonathan Jemison and Ysabel Gonzalez-Rico last did it.
Men’s doubles champions – Andrei Leonov and Pat Otero, UChicagoAndrei Leonov and Pat Otero, the senior tandem for defending champion UChicago, brought home the school’s first individual national title in team history on Monday afternoon. The No. 2 seed pairing in Claremont, Leonov and Otero emerged victorious in three sets over No. 4 Vuk Vuksanovic/Javier Gonzalez (Tufts), 6-4, 4-6, 7-6 (7-5).
The two were battle-tested all week, as half of their matches went the distance. A perfect 4-0 record at the Biszantz Family Tennis Center saw an opening-round win against Gage Gohl/Tyler Haddorf (Gustavus Adolphus/4-6, 6-1, 6-4) before victories against Caleb Settles/Brandon Vu (CMS/6-3, 6-3) in the quarters and Michael Melnikov/Utham Koduri (Swarthmore/7-6 (4), 6-2) in the semis. The championship final saw a third-set tiebreaker in which their opponents once held a 5-4 advantage.
The pair wrapped a truly historic week for the Maroons’, as they were just the fourth team in school history to reach the semifinal of the NCAA Tournament. No UChicago doubles duo had ever reached the tournament final prior to Leonov and Otero.
Women’s doubles champions – Olivia Soffer and Matia Cristiana, BabsonBack-to-back doubles titles are coming home for Babson. For the second consecutive spring, it was the Beavers’ tandem of Olivia Soffer and Matia Cristiana to emerge as Women’s doubles champions. The No. 3 pair in Claremont, the duo toppled the No. 1 seeded Nina Farhat and Sahana Raman of Middlebury in Tuesday’s final in straight sets, 6-2, 6-2.
The now back-to-back champions have plenty of experience playing on the big stage, as they reached their third consecutive NCAA doubles final. They won the first three rounds in straight sets, beating Oliwia and Sylwia Mikos (Chicago/6-2, 6-1), Brooke Despriet and Ansley Carpenter (Sewanee/6-3, 6-2) and Alisha Chulani and Rebecca Kong (CMS/6-3, 6-2) to reach the final.
It was revenge for the Beavers, who lost to Farhat/Raman, 6-0, on March 19. Since the early-season loss, Soffer/Cristiani have now won 17 straight matches and are 81-8 together over the past three seasons.
History also came with a second consecutive championship for the Babson duo. They’re the first players to reach three straight doubles finals since Gabby Devlin (Amherst) competed in four straight from 2011-14. They’re also the first back-to-back doubles champions since Williams’ Julie Ravento and Linda Shin in 2015-16.
