Nikolai Parodi Earns ITA National Senior Player of the Year Award

CLAREMONT, Calif. – Claremont-Mudd-Scripps senior Nikolai Parodi earned the 2019-20 Intercollegiate Tennis Association Division III Men's Tennis National Senior of the Year, the organization announced this morning during its virtual awards show, presented by Oracle.

The awards show, which is typically held at the NCAA Division III National Championships, moved online this year due to the cancelation of spring sports back in March. That denied Parodi a chance to earn a national championship this season, as the Stags ended the abbreviated campaign ranked No. 2 in the nation, while Parodi was ranked No. 1 in singles and No. 3 in doubles (with doubles partner Ian Freer).



Despite losing out on the completion of his senior season, Parodi leaves behind an impressive legacy over his four years with Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men's tennis. He was an eight-time ITA All-American, sweeping the award in both singles and doubles all four seasons to become only the third player in CMS history to win eight All-America honors.

Parodi, who played No. 1 singles and doubles for virtually his entire career, helped CMS reach the national championship match twice, as the Stags appeared in the NCAA finals in both 2017 as a first-year and in 2019 as a junior. Individually, he reached the NCAA Division III championship match in singles as a first-year and made it to the semifinals as a sophomore as well.

In the NCAA team championships, Parodi had an impressive career record of 12-1. As a first-year, Parodi was 5-0 in singles in the NCAA team championships, earning clutch three-set wins in both the semifinals against Middlebury (a 5-4 win) and in the final against Emory (a 5-2 defeat). He was 3-0 as a sophomore, providing one of the two CMS points in a quarterfinal defeat to Chicago, and was 4-1 last year, with key wins over Bowdoin and Chicago in the quarterfinals and semifinals.  

In addition to his success in NCAA competition, Parodi became the first person to win the SCIAC Men's Tennis Newcomer of the Year and Athlete of the Year Awards in the same season in 2017. He also became the first player in the 100-plus year history of The Ojai to sweep the singles and doubles championships for three years in a row.

Parodi finished his CMS career with a combined singles and doubles record of 191-64, which ranks him seventh in career victories. That number would have been even higher, except for an injury which kept him out for three weeks as a first-year, a semester abroad as a junior in the fall of 2018 which kept him from two ITA events, and the shortened senior season, which still had 18 regular season dual matches, and the Ojai, SCIAC and NCAA Tournaments still to be played.

Parodi graduates as part of a five-member senior class, along with fellow captain Daniel Park and senior Jake Berber, Matthew Jacobs and Jake Williams, that won 108 dual matches in four years. The Stags will still have a strong group returning, though, led by senior Jack Katzman, who has finished in the top five in the nation in singles in each of his first three seasons, and Freer, who earned All-America honors in doubles with Parodi this season.