NCAA Division III Doubles Championship
Tuesday, May 27 | 3 p.m. ET / 12 p.m. PT
Biszantz Family Tennis Center | Claremont, Calif. 

SINGLES DRAW

DOUBLES DRAW

WHAT TO KNOW
•    Babson women's tennis senior Olivia Soffer and junior Matia Cristiani were selected to compete in the NCAA Division III Singles and Doubles Championships for the third consecutive season. 
•    Soffer and Cristiani have advanced to the their consecutive NCAA doubles final after both reaching the second round of the singles draw. 
•    Soffer and Cristiani will take on the top-seeded Middlebury duo of Nina Farhat and Sahana Raman in Monday's final at 3 p.m. ET

HOW WE GOT HERE
•    Soffer and Cristiani have reached their third consecutive NCAA doubles final thanks to a trio of straight-set wins over the last three days. 
•    The Beavers' duo opened with a 6-2, 6-1 victory over Oliwia and Sylwia Mikos of Chicago in Saturday's first round, defeated Brooke Despriet and Ansley Carpenter of Sewanee 6-3, 6-2 in Sunday's quarterfinals and downed Alisha Chulani and Rebecca Kong of Claremont-Mudd-Scripps 6-3, 6-2 on Monday in the semifinals. 
•    Middlebury's top-seeded pairing of Nina Farhat and Sahana Raman, who are 30-3 on the season, defeated Karina Elvestrom and Kaya De Bruijn of Gustavus Adolphus 6-2, 6-3 in the first round, got past Izabele Antanavicius and Iris Berman of Emory 7-6 (7-1), 6-3 in Sunday's quarterfinals and topped fourth-seeded Angie Zhou and Marissa Markey of Pomona-Pitzer 6-2, 7-5 on Monday. 

THE CHAMPS ARE HERE
•    Soffer and Cristiani, who are currently ranked third in Division III, entered this year's doubles championship as the defending national champions after knocking off Nikolina Batoshvili and Alisha Chulani of Claremont-Mudd-Scripps  6-1, 6-7 (1-7), 6-4 in last year's title match in St. Louis, Mo., on May 27.
•    The Beavers' top duo also finished as the runner-up in doubles after falling to Katherine Petty and Brooke Despriet of Sewanee in the 2023 final in Orlando, Fla. 
•    Cristiani advanced to the semifinals of last year's 32-player singles draw, while Soffer, who was seeded fourth, got upset by Chulani in the first round

FINAL DESTINATION
•    Soffer and Cristiani have picked up where they left off last season going 25-2 in doubles on the year, which includes 16 consecutive victories dating back to March 21. 
•    The duo went 4-0 in five conference and NCAA Tournament matches and dropped just one game in wins over UMass Boston and No. 13 Johns Hopkins at the NCAA Middlebury Regional back on May 9-10. 

A SHOT AT HISTORY
•    Soffer and Cristiani, who are the first players to advance to three straight doubles finals since Gabby Devlin of Amherst competed in four straight from 2011-14, are looking to become the first back-to-back NCAA doubles champions since Julie Raventos and and Linda Shin accomplished the feat for Williams in 2015 and 2016. 
•    To capture their second consecutive championship, Soffer and Cristiani will need to avenge one of their two losses this season after suffering a 6-0 defeat at the hands of Farhat and Raman back on March 19.
•    Since losing to Farhat and Raman, Soffer and Cristiani have rattled off 16 consecutive wins.

DECORATED DUO
•    Soffer, who earned her fourth consecutive NEWMAC Player of the Year honor in early May, was selected as the ITA Northeast Region Senior Player of the Year Award on Monday and was named as the ITA's national senior player of the year on Tuesday afternoon. 
•    A five-time All-America selection, Soffer also garnered All-NEWMAC first-team singles laurels for the fourth year in a row and first-team doubles honors for the third consecutive season. 
•    Cristiani, who was the 2024 ITA Northeast Region and National Player to Watch, already owns four All-America honors and was named to the all-conference singles and doubles first team for the third year in a row earlier this month. 

REWRITING THE RECORD BOOKS
•    Soffer is Babson's all-time leader in career singles (99), doubles (96) and combined victories (195), while Cristiani ranks second on the all-time list in singles (79), doubles (82) and combined wins (161). 
•    The duo set a new single-season record by 32-2 in doubles last year and are 80-8 playing together in doubles over the last three seasons. Crisitani holds the Beavers' single-season record for combined wins with 61 last year, and Soffer owns the single-season record for singles victories with 31 back in 2022-23.

NCAA CHAMPIONSHIP SUCCESS
 

2024	Result
Soffer	First round
Cristiani	Semifinals
Doubles	National Champions
2023	Result
Soffer	Runner-up
Cristiani	Second round
Doubles	Runner-up
2022	Result
Soffer	Quarterfinals

NOTEABLE 
•    Second-year Babson head coach Emma Hall and associate head coach Alan Dubrovsky have helped Soffer and Cristiani reach the NCAA doubles final for the second in a row after Beavers' Director of Tennis and current men's head coach Michael Kopelman helped the pairing reach the doubles final while Soffer advanced ot the singles final back in 2023. 
•    Current Middlebury head coach Olivia Leavitt served as an assistant men's and women's tennis coach at Babson under Kopelman during the 2019-20 campaign.