No. 13 Women's Tennis Spring Break
Monday, March 11: at No. 27 Caltech | 1 p.m. EDT | Pasadena, Calif. 
Tuesday, March 12: at No. 10 Redlands | 5 p.m. EDT | Redlands, Calif.
Thursday, March 14 | vs. No. 14 Sewanee | 2 p.m. EDT | Malibu, Calif.
Friday, March 15 | vs. No. 28 Bowdoin | 3 p.m. EDT | Claremont, Calif. 

WHAT TO KNOW
•    The Babson women's tennis team returns to action following a five-month break from competition with four matches against nationally-ranked opponents in southern California beginning Monday. 
•    The Beavers went 16-2 and advanced to their first NCAA Tournament regional final in school history in 2023. 

SERIES HISTORY
vs. Caltech: 0-1; suffered a 7-2 loss to the Beavers in 2022. 
vs. Redlands: first meeting 
vs. Sewanee: 0-3; dropped an 8-1 decision to the Tigers in California in March 2022. 
vs. Bowdoin: 0-3; lost 7-2 to the Polar Bears back in March 2018. 

SCOUTING BABSON
•    The 13th-ranked Beavers (1-0) breezed to a 9-0 win over Emerson in its only dual match of the fall back on October 12. 
•    Junior Laetitia Rizk and first-year Chaniel Soffer both picked up points in singles and doubles for the Beavers, who dropped just two games in doubles and claimed all six singles matches in straight sets. 
•    Junior Olivia Soffer went 6-1 in all fall singles matches, sophomore Matia Cristiani was 11-1 with her lone loss coming in the ITA Cup final and Rizk finished 5-1 and has won her last four matches. 
•    Soffer and Cristiani are 14-1 on the year in doubles, while the trio of senior Adele Fernandez and sophomores Mariana Campos and Kamila Stasiowska all picked up four wins doubles victories in the fall.

SCOUTING CALTECH
•    The 27th-ranked Beavers (1-1) defeated No. 33 Vassar, 7-2, for its first win of the season last Tuesday. 
•    Yoyo Benchetrit, Anika Arora and Anna Tanaka all recorded victories in both singles and doubles for Caltech, which jumped out to a 3-0 lead after doubles. 
•    Benchetrit is 2-0 at number two singles and Tanaka has gone 2-0 at number six singles in the team's matches against Brandeis and Vassar. 
•    Tanaka and Hannah Ramsperger at number one, Benchetrit and Arora at number two and Athena Kolli and Emily Zhang at number three have all gone 1-1 in doubles play over their first two contests. 

SCOUTING REDLANDS
•    The 10th-ranked Bulldogs (4-0) has defeated three nationally-ranked foes in February and stayed unbeaten with a 9-0 victory over No. 26 Mary Washington last Friday. 
•    Maegan Deng is 5-1 at number one singles and 7-2 in all matches, Kiana Brady has gone 4-1 at number two singles and Olivia Rockwood has won four straight matches at number three to run her record to 7-3 on the season. 
•    Deng and Rockwood have gone 5-4 at number one doubles, while Brady and Christine O'Brien are 4-0 at number three doubles this spring. 

SCOUTING SEWANEE
•    The 14th-ranked Tigers (2-4) have dropped three of their last four matches, all against top-15 foes, and are coming off a 9-0 loss at No. 1 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps on Friday. 
•    Katherine Petty and Brooke Despriet, the defending NCAA Doubles champions, suffered an 8-5 setback at number one and all six singles matches were decided in straight sets against the Athenas. 
•    Despriet is 6-4 overall and 3-3 at second singles, Ansley Carpenter is 3-3 in all singles matches and Mariella Congeni is 4-5 with one victory apiece at No. 4 and No. 5. 
•    Despriet and Petty, who are ranked third in Division III, have gone 11-3 this season, while Carpenter and Sarah Livingston are 3-4 with all but two matches coming at number two. 

SCOUTING BOWDOIN
•    The 28th-ranked Polar Bears (2-0) opened the spring portion of its schedule with a pair of 9-0 wins over Endicott and Connecticut College back on March 2. 
•    Julia Ross has gone 9-3 in all singles matches to begin the season, while Caroline Stulfaut is 4-4 with all of her losses coming in three sets. 
•    Jamilah Karah and Cara Hung are 2-0 at number one doubles, Stuhlfaut and Hannah Buckhout are 7-1 in all matches, and Zoe Sun and Elizabeth Yu have started 2-0 at number three doubles. 

SOFFER, CRISTIANI EARN LOFTY STATUS IN NATIONAL RANKINGS
•    After reaching the final of the NCAA Doubles championship last May and following it up with another finals appearance at the ITA Cup, the duo of Soffer and Cristiani begins the spring ranked No. 2 in Division III by the ITA. 
•    Individually, Cristiani is ranked third nationally after falling to Sylwia Mikos in the ITA Cup final, while Soffer, who advanced to last year's NCAA Singles final, is ranked 17th. 

NEW LEADER FOR THE BEAVERS
•    Emma Davis was hired as the new head women's tennis coach at Babson in December after Michael Kopelman was elevated to the program's Director of Tennis back in October. 
•    Davis comes to Babson following a two-year stint as an assistant women's tennis coach at Yale where she helped the program match its highest win total in nearly a decade back in 2022.
•    Davis graduated from Wake Forest in 2019 following a standout playing career that saw her rise as high as 16th in the ITA singles rankings while helping the Demon Deacons make four NCAA Tournament appearances. 

REWRITING THE RECORD BOOKS
•    Thanks to her three wins alongside Cristiani at the ITA Cup back in October, Soffer became the program's all-time leader with 108 combined singles and doubles victories. 
•    She owns 58 singles and 50 doubles wins and passed the previous mark of 107 held by Rebecca Stone '12. 
•    Soffer is one win shy of matching Stone's career singles mark of 59 and needs just three doubles victories to pass Francesca Russo's '06 all-time record of 60. 

TOUGH TESTS AWAIT
•    The Beavers open the spring four straight matches against ranked foes in southern California and will face nine teams that are currently ranked among the top 30 in the ITA poll this spring. 
•    Babson travels to No. 20 Tufts on March 29, will take on No. 7 Emory and No. 16 Trinity (Texas) in Atlanta on April 5-6, and will host 21st-ranked Brandeis on April 14 before heading to Cambridge for a NEWMAC showdown with No. 12 MIT on April 19. 

UP NEXT
•    Following the four matches in southern California, the Beavers return home to meet Smith on March 23 on the Babson Tennis Courts.