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Courtesy of CMS Athletics--
Advik Mareedu of the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men's tennis team wrapped up the greatest singles season in NCAA Division III history with a dominant 6-0, 6-1 win over Kael Shah of Denison to earn the NCAA title at the Biszantz Family Tennis Center on Monday.
CMS Athletics Release
Mareedu finished the year 41-1 overall and 35-0 against NCAA Division III competition, sweeping both the ITA Cup singles national title and the NCAA singles national title in the same season. He dropped only four sets all year to Division III opponents, one in the ITA Cup in the fall to Aidan Drover-Mattinen of RPI, and three during the regular season in SCIAC play, to Ethan Sherwood of Cal Lutheran, Constantin Cedillo-Vayson de Pradenne of Caltech and Drew Goldman of Pomona-Pitzer, before winning the third set each time.
Mareedu's only loss this year was to Austin Stone of Division II Westmont, 6-2, 6-7, 6-7 on April 8, when he dropped the tiebreaker in the second set 7-4 and the third-set tiebreaker 8-6. He had a 4-0 lead in the third set in that match as well, but then turned it back up again, and closed out the year with 11 straight-set wins in a row, after his three-setter over Goldman.
Shah won the team national title with Denison on Friday, and came into the singles competition ranked No. 3 in the nation, Shah was the national runner-up a year ago to Tristen Bradley of Bowdoin, who was ranked No. 1 last year in Division III before transferring to USC over the summer. Mareedu was ranked No. 2 a year ago, and defeated Bradley head-to-head for the decisive point in a 5-4 win over Bowdoin in the national semifinals. Mareedu took over the No. 1 spot this year, and never relinquished it.
The national championship match saw Mareedu locked in from the beginning, as he took a 6-0 first set. Shah held for 2-1 in the second to try to battle back in it, but Mareedu took control from there, eventually taking the title on a backhand winner.
Mareedu will be back next year with 101 singles wins already to his credit, going 30-6 as a freshman and sophomore and 41-1 as a junior. He and the Stags will try to aim for the team national championship next year as well, after falling in the semis this year to Case Western. CMS loses No. 3
Matthew Robinson and No. 5
Tarm Rojanasoonthon from its singles lineup, but will have its top two doubles teams (
Caleb Settles and
Brandon Vu, and Mareedu and
Josh Kim) back, as well as
Warren Pham and
Anirudh Gupta, who have extensive NCAA Tournament experience.
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