Parodi, Katzman Earn NCAA Singles Invitations, Parodi-Gordy Selected in Doubles

CLAREMONT, Calif. - The No. 1-ranked Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men's tennis team will have Nikolai Parodi and Jack Katzman as two of the 32 competitors in the NCAA Division III Singles Championship in Kalamazoo, Michigan, while Parodi and Julian Gordy will represent the Stags in the 16-team doubles competition, the NCAA announced today.

The NCAA Singles and Doubles Championships will take place from May 24-26, after the team championships are completed in Kalamzoo from May 20-22. The Stags can earn their way to the first half of championship week as a team by winning their host regional on Friday and Saturday at the Biszantz Family Tennis Center, where they will compete against UT Dallas, Trinity and Whitman. 

Parodi will be making his third appearance in the NCAA Division III Singles Championship, after finishing as the national runner-up as a freshman to Lubomir Cuba of Middlebury and reaching the semifinals again as a sophomore last year. He and Gordy will also be making a return visit in doubles, after earning the four seed before dropping a three-setter in the opening round last spring to Bates. 

Katzman followed Parodi in giving the Stags back-to-back national runners-up in singles by reaching the final match last year, before falling to Grant Urken of Bowdoin, who also edged Parodi in three sets in the semifinals. This year, Katzman is undefeated in dual matches in singles (20-0) and 26-2 overall, with his two losses coming in the fall (one to Urken at the ITA Grasscourt Championships, and the other to Chad LeDuff of UC Santa Cruz in the ITA West Regional finals). 

CMS begins play at its host regional on Friday at 10 a.m., when it will face UT Dallas in one of two semifinals. The winner of that match will move on to face the winner of the Trinity-Whitman winner on Saturday at 10 a.m. in the regional finals.