No. 12 Men's Tennis vs. No. 27 NYU
Saturday, February 28 | 3:45 p.m.
Longfellow Health Club / Wellesley, Mass.

No. 12 Men's Tennis at No. 3 Tufts
Sunday, March 1 | 4:00 p.m.
Bass River Tennis Club / Beverly, Mass.

SERIES HISTORY
vs. NYU
• Babson is 2-3 all-time against the Violets in a series that dates back to the 2002-03 campaign.
• NYU took the first three matches between 2002-2008 but the Beavers have captured the last two in 2022 and 2023.
vs. Tufts
• Babson is looking for its first career victory over the Jumbos in a series that dates back to 1994-95.
• The Beavers have dropped all 23 meetings but last year's shutout was the first since 2010.

LAST MEETING
vs. NYU
• Maxwell Conlin '23, Brady Anderson '25 and Luis Utrilla all recorded points in both singles and doubles to help 23rd-ranked Babson defeat visiting NYU, 8-1, on April 15, 2023, at the Babson Tennis Complex.
• The Anderson-Utrilla tandem and Conlin-Parker Law '23 pair posted doubles victories for the Beavers, while NYU earned its only point by Boren Zhang and Alexander Lee.
• The Beavers swept the singles on wins by Brooks Green M'23 at number one, Utrilla at number two, Anderson at three, Conlin at four, Kian Yazdi M'23 at five and Jack MacDonald '23 at six.
vs. Tufts
• No. 3 Tufts got wins at both singles and doubles from four different players to defeat No. 25 Babson, 7-0, on March 2, 2025 inside the Longfellow Tennis Club.
• The Beavers lost 6-4 at number one doubles and 7-5 at number three as Tufts swept the three matches.
• The Green and White put up a strong battle in singles but couldn't break through against the Jumbos. Anderson was defeated 6-4, 6-4 at number two by Javier Gonzalez, senior Alexander Merson went down 6-4, 7-5 at number four to Andrej Djokic, and sophomore Sebastian Medoza lost a first-set tiebreaker and fell 7-6, 6-3 to Sacha Maes at number five.

SCOUTING THE BEAVERS
• No. 12 Babson (4-0, 1-0 NEWMAC) claimed a pair of 5-2 road victories over Skidmore and No. 20 Renssselaer last Saturday in Eastern New York.
• Sophomore Edward Wang and first-year Maxim Zlobinsky registered three combined victories each and senior Alexander Merson, sophomore Sebastian Mendoza and first-year Max Lidman also recorded a pair of wins on the day for the Beavers.
• Merson (9-2) won a three-set match against Skidmore on Saturday and leads the team in singles wins. First-year Dylan O'Connell-DeCerchio (8-1) is second on the squad in singles wins, followed by classmate Sourish Gadhi (7-3), Wang (7-2), Zlobinsky (6-2) and Mendoza (5-2).
• Mendoza and Wang (16-2) fell for just the second time this season in doubles against Rensselaer. Merson and first-year Rishi Batlanki are 6-2 and Bourn and Zlobinsky are 5-1.

SCOUTING THE VIOLETS
• No. 27 NYU (1-0, 0-0 UAA), which will scrimmage against MIT on Friday, opened its spring schedule on Sunday with a 5-2 home victory over Union in Bronx, N.Y.
• The Violet swept the doubles play for its first point and then took four of the six singles matches. Graduate student Niklas von Hellens and sophomores Bryan Hui and Boris Slesarev were winners in both singles and doubles and senior Cooper Kline won at No. 5 singles.
• Grad student Philip Martin (5-1) leads the team in singles wins and Hui (4-4) and Slesarev (4-1) have four singles win apiece.
• Martin and fellow grad student Pierre Boullenger have posted a 2-1 mark in doubles for the Violets.

SCOUTING THE JUMBOS
• No. 3 Tufts (0-0, 0-0 NESCAC) will open its spring slate on Saturday at Bryant in Smithfield, R.I. before welcoming the Beavers on Sunday.
• The Jumbos' fall season was highlighted by the senior doubles pair of Alex Ganchev and Sacha Maes advancing to the semifinals of the main draw at the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) New England Regionals.
•  Junior Garv Bahl advanced to the quarterfinals in the top singles flight and sophomore Nico Tremblay and first-year Jackson Rich advanced to the final of the B draw in doubles.
• The Jumbos finished 23-3 last year and 10-0 in the NESCAC after falling to Middlebury in the NESCAC semifinals and being defeated by No. 2 Denison in the NCAA Tournament semifinals. Tufts saw athletes finish runner-up in the NCAA doubles final and advance to the semifinals in singles.

WANG EARNS NEWMAC WEEKLY HONOR
• Wang was named the New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) Singles Player of the Week on Monday afternoon in the first round of men's tennis weekly honors this season.
• Wang recorded a pair of straight-set wins in Babson's victories over Skidmore and No. 20 Rensselaer. He defeated Kyle Lundberg of Skidmore 7-5, 6-3 at number two and added a 6-2, 6-2 triumph over Tasmay Shah of the Engineers at number one.

NATIONALLY RANKED FOES
• The weekend's matches are the second and third for Babson this spring against teams that are in the ITA Top 40 Team Rankings.
• The Beavers are 1-0 thus far after the defeat of No. 20 Rensselaer last week, and will also face No. 2 Chicago, No. 30 MIT, No. 25 Haverford, No. 10 Amherst, and No. 32 Brandeis in scheduled duals in the next two months, as well as possibly two more at the Stag-Hen Invitational in Claremont, Calif., during spring break in mid-March.

ITA TEAM RANKINGS
• Babson, which climbed as high as No. 11 in last year's ITA Division III regular season rankings on April 2 and April 9, finished 11th in the 2024-25 final rankings.
• The Beavers were ranked No. 12 in this year's preseason rankings in January, remained at No. 12 in the February 12 rankings.
• Under the direction of Michael Kopelman, who is now in his eighth season as head coach, the Beavers have appeared in the final national poll of the season in six consecutive seasons.

ITA INDIVIDUAL RANKINGS
• Babson was well represented when the ITA released its first national and regional singles and doubles rankings of the 2025-26 season in November.
• The top ranking for Babson came in doubles where Mendoza and Wang have ascended to No. 3 nationally in addition to claiming the top in the northeast region. Merson is ranked 17th nationally in singles, while Wang will enter the spring at No. 42. Merson (4th), Wang (12th) and Mendoza (19th) are all among the top 20 in singles in the northeast region as well. 

UP NEXT
• The Beavers will play five matches in California during the school's spring breaking, beginning with Whitman and Colorado College on March 18 in Redlands and Claremont.