No. 17 Women's Tennis at No. 25 Brandeis
Saturday, March 8 | 1:00 p.m. 
Cordish Tennis Center | Waltham, Mass. 

SERIES HISTORY
• Babson and Brandeis will meet on Saturday afternoon for the 30th time dating back to the 1994-95 campaign.
• The Beavers are 8-21 against the Judges but have won the last three years after losing 12 in a row from 2009-19.

LAST MEETING
• Senior Olivia Soffer, junior Matia Cristiani and sophomore Chaniel Soffer all collected wins in both singles and doubles as No. 20 Babson knocked off No. 28 Brandeis, 6-3, on April 14, 2024, at the Babson Tennis Courts.
• Mariana Campos also picked up a singles win and Adèle Fernández '24 joined Chaniel Soffer on a winning doubles team for the Beavers.
• Seniors Cecilia Denis and Anastasia Sia registered a win at third doubles for the Judges, while sophomores Lika Bolkvadze and Mandy Reyes posted singles victories in the setback.

SCOUTING THE BEAVERS
• No. 17 Babson (0-0, 0-0 NEWMAC) is playing its first dual match of the spring after competing in four tournaments last fall.
• The highlight of the fall season was provided by Olivia Soffer, who advanced to the final of the ITA New England Championship for the second time in three years and advanced to the ITA Cup for the third year in a row.
• Soffer (8-2) is ranked eighth in Division III in the ITA singles rankings that came out after the fall season while first-year Sarai Dorismond (7-3) is ranked 39th and Cristiani (8-1) is 50th. Junior Grace Starcher (8-3) advanced to the semifinals of the 'B' draw at the New England ITA championships and shares the team lead in singles wins.
• O. Soffer and Cristiani, the defending Division III national champions in doubles, went 7-1 in the fall but the loss came in the quarterfinals of the ITA New England Championships. The tandems of Starcher and sophomore Riya Matheroo, and first-years Dorismond and Allessandra Cristiani, both went 4-2 in doubles in the fall.

SCOUTING THE JUDGES
• No. 25 Brandeis (0-4) continued its spring schedule with a 5-2 loss to No. 23 Bowdoin last Saturday in Riverside, R.I. The Judges dropped three matches to nationally-ranked teams in February, No. 11 MIT, No. 21 Redlands, and No. 4 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps.
• Senior Bhakti Parwani and junior Rebecca Suarez earned a win at No. 1 doubles against Bowdoin, and Suarez at No. 1 and Sia at No. 5 captured singles victories.
• Reyes (6-3) went 5-0 in tournament play last fall and leads the Judges in singles wins while Suarez (3-2) is 1-1 at No. 1 singles. Parwani and Suarez, who advanced to the NCAA Division III Doubles Championships last spring, are off to a 2-1 start in doubles this season.
• The Judges were knocked out of the UAA Tournament last spring by No. 7 Washington U. of St. Louis and finished 10-9 in dual matches.

WHAT'S NEW FOR 2024-25
• The ITA and NCAA have adopted a new 7-point scoring format for dual matches this season that includes just one point for doubles. 
• All doubles matches will be played to 6 points with a 7-point tiebreaker at 6-all. 
• Singles matches will continue to be the best two-out-of-three sets. 

BEAVERS PICKED RUNNER-UP IN NEWMAC COACHES' POLL
• Babson was picked to finish runner-up when the New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) announced its preseason coaches' poll last month. 
• The Beavers received three first-place votes and finished behind last year's champion MIT, which got six top votes. Wellesley, Smith and Springfield rounded out the top five.

TOUGH TESTS AWAIT
• Saturday's encounter with Brandeis will be the first of nine Babson matches this spring against teams ranked in the ITA Division III poll.
• The Beavers will meet No. 8 Middlebury, No. 21 Redlands and No. 32 Caltech on the spring break trip to California the third week in March. The Green and White will host No. 35 Colby on April 5 before traveling to Atlanta to take on No. 5 Emory and No. 16 Case Western Reserve on April 11-12.
• Babson will also host No. 11 MIT in a NEWMAC showdown on April 18 and wrap up the regular season at No. 9 Amherst on April 26.

REWRITING THE RECORD BOOKS
• Olivia Soffer and Matia Cristiani have made major impacts on the Babson women's tennis record books, with the spring season still to play.
• The duo captured 32 doubles victories last season to shatter the single-season program record for doubles wins. Cristiani produced 29 singles victories last year to rank second behind Soffer's 31 in 2022-23, and they rank 1-2 in single-season combined wins (Cristiani-61 last year, Soffer-54 in 2022-23).
• Olivia is the Babson career leader in singles (80), doubles (75) and combined wins (155) while Matia is second in singles (61), doubles (63), and combined victories (124).

NUMBERS TO KNOW
• Babson was 13-2 last season when leading after doubles and has won 57 of its last 59 matches with a lead heading into singles dating back to 2018.
• The Beavers are 29-8 in regular season matches going back to the start of the 2022-23 season.

UP NEXT
• The Beavers head to California for a spring break trip that will include three of four matches against nationally ranked teams. The opening match on the trip is at Chapman on March 16 in Orange, Calif.