No. 34 Men's Tennis at No. 26 MIT
Wednesday, April 10| 3:30 p.m.
DuPont Tennis Courts | Cambridge, Mass.
SERIES HISTORY
• Babson boasts just two wins in 40 all-time matches against MIT in a series that dates back to the 1983-84 campaign.
• The Beavers recorded their first win over MIT since 2015 during the regular season last year in Cambridge, 6-3, snapping an 11-match losing streak to the Engineers.
LAST MEETING
• Second-seeded and 37th-ranked MIT avenged the regular season loss with a 5-3 victory over top-seeded and No. 19 Babson in the NEWMAC championship match on April 23, 2023 at the Winchester Tennis Club.
•
Maxwell Conlin '23 and
Parker Law '23 captured an 8-5 victory at number three doubles but the Beavers trailed 2-1 heading into singles. Junior
Brady Anderson at number three and
Jason Weisman '23 at number six recorded singles wins for the Green and White but it wasn't enough to stop the Engineers from claiming the title.
• Senior Sundeep Chakladar and Wayne Nelms at number two and senior Kailis Kahler and graduate student Daniel Papacica at first doubles gave the Engineers a lead heading into singles. Papacica at number two singles, Kahler at number one, and senior Benji Grossman '23 at number five clinched the win for the Engineers.
SCOUTING THE BEAVERS
• No. 34 Babson (7-7, 3-0 NEWMAC) swept a pair of matches back on March 30, blanking Holy Cross 7-0 in Worcester and Salve Regina 9-0 in a conference match in Newport, R.I.
• Graduate student
Andrew Watson, juniors
Brady Anderson and
Wesley Zhang and first-year
Logan Back were all winners in both singles and doubles in the win over Holy Cross, and senior
Jose Gonzalez, junior
Eshan Mukherjee, sophomore
Martin Mejia, and first-years
Brandon Reznik,
Mattias Harrell and
Kerem Ozlale were all double winners in the whitewash over Salve.
• Graduate student
Jonah Wilson (11-4), No. 24 in last fall's ITA Division III rankings, leads the team in singles wins, including 4-1 in dual matches, followed by Gonzalez (10-11), Ozlale (10-6) and Watson (8-3).
• Anderson and Watson are 10th in the ITA Northeast Region doubles rankings, while Mejia and Back have posted nine doubles wins each to lead the team.
SCOUTING THE ENGINEERS
• No. 26 MIT (9-3, 2-0 NEWMAC) is coming off a 6-3 loss to No. 5 Bowdoin last Saturday in Brunswick, Maine, snapping a seven-match winning streak.
• The Engineers got a doubles win at number three from first-years Shrish Choudhary and Siddharth Marathe and singles victories from Kahler at number one and junior Ryan Xiao at number three.
• Xiao (8-4) leads the team in singles wins, mostly at numbers two and three. Kahler, ranked ninth in the ITA Northeast region, is 7-3 at number one, Choudhary is 7-4 at numbers 2-5, and Marathe is 7-2 at number 3-6.
• Chakladar and senior Joseph Li are 7-1 in doubles (5-0 at number three), and Kahler and Sun at 5-1 at number two. Papacia and first-year Grant Gallagher at 4-5 at number one.
NEWMAC WEEKLY HONORS
• Babson swept last week's NEWMAC weekly honors, as Anderson was named singles athlete of the week and Anderson and Watson were tabbed as doubles team of the week.
• It was the third time this season that Babson has swept the weekly conference awards.
CONFERENCE DOMINANCE
• The Beavers have posted a 16-2 regular season record against NEWMAC foes over the past three seasons, and a 51-8 mark going back to 2013.
• The only conference losses in the past 10 years were to MIT (seven times) and Coast Guard (once, in 2022).
NATIONAL CALIBER SCHEDULE
• Babson has played seven matches against teams in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) national rankings, including four from the top 10.
• The lone win came by a score of 4-3 against No. 12 Gustavus Adolphus on March 15.
• After Wednesday, the Beavers have one more ranked opponent on the schedule, No. 18 Mary Washington on Sunday.
UP NEXT
• The Beavers will return home for a pair of matches this weekend, hosting local rival Brandeis on Saturday at 11 a.m. and No. 18 Mary Washington on Sunday at 10 a.m.
