CMS Men's Tennis Takes Over as Nation's New No. 1 Team

CMS Men's Tennis Takes Over as Nation's New No. 1 Team

CLAREMONT, Calif. - The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men's tennis moved up to the No. 1 spot in the nation in the latest Division III poll from the Intercollegiate Tennis Association, the organization announced on April 11.

The Stags moved up from No. 4 in the most recent poll from two weeks ago into the top spot after defeating both No. 1 Chicago and No. 2 Middlebury on successive days (March 29-30), handing both teams their first Division III losses. Chicago slips to No. 2, while Emory remains in the No. 3 position, with one more regular season poll still to come on April 25. 

CMS now stands at 20-1 on the season, with the only loss a road defeat to Amherst to close out its Spring Break trip to New England on March 21. Since then, the Stags have defeated three teams ranked in the top five (No. 5 Williams, in addition to Chicago and Middlebury), as well as No. 20 Gustavus Adolphus. In the current poll, CMS has defeated six of the top 10 teams in the nation (No. 2 Chicago, No. 4 Bowdoin, No. 5 Wesleyan, No. 8 Middlebury, No. 9 Brandeis and No. 10 Williams), while falling to No. 7 Amherst. 

Leading the way for the Stags has been sophomore Jack Katzman, who is undefeated in dual matches in singles at 15-0, tallying a 6-0 record at No. 1 and a 9-0 record at No. 2. Katzman was the NCAA runner-up in singles last year as a freshman to Bowdoin's Grant Urken, and is 21-2 overall in singles, with the two losses coming in the fall in the finals of the ITA Grass Court Championships (to Urken) and in the ITA West Regionals (to Chad LeDuff of UC Santa Cruz, who is ranked No. 2 nationally).

Freshman Nic Meister, who has recently emerged as the team's No. 6, is also undefeated in dual matches at 8-0, while senior Julian Gordy (11-3), junior Daniel Park (10-2) and sophomore Robert Liu (10-4) are all in double figures in dual wins as well. Junior Nikolai Parodi, the team's usual No. 1 singles player, has been coming on strong of late as well and is 9-5 on the season, including wins over both Urken and LeDuff. 

The newly-crowned No. 1 Stags will be in action at home for three matches this weekend, hosting Redlands this afternoon at 3 p.m. and then entertaining Occidental (10 a.m.) and California Marymount (3 p.m.) tomorrow for a doubleheader. 

To view the complete ITA Division III poll, go to the following link: 

ITA Division III poll (April 11)