Adam Tzeng ’22 of the men’s team and Bhakti Parwani ’25 of the women’s team achieved University Athletic Association (UAA) Athlete of the Week. The award recognized Tzeng’s dominant week, losing a total of six games, and Parwani’s showings against Bentley and Colby this past week, getting the Judges their sole singles win in their match against Colby. The association rewards athletes from Brandeis, Emory and other member schools for excellence in their sport and recognizes universities that weave athletics throughout the campus environment. This marks Tzeng’s second consecutive week with this honor and fourth overall and Parwani’s first such honor.
The Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Division III national poll ranked the men’s team number nine. This is the fourth consecutive season where the Judges are inside the top-10. It comes as they improve their overall season record 6-2 with a 6-3 win against Colby.
In doubles, Tzeng and Jeff Chen ’22 won handly in first doubles 8-3, followed by a 2-8 loss at third with Hunter Levine ’23 and Colt Tegtmeier ’22. At second doubles, Colin Fox ’25 and Dylan Walters ’24 won in a tight set 8-7 (7-3) at second, after coming back from behind.
The singles matches were largely one sided, with straight set scores all the way down the leaderboard. Tzeng dropped only three games on his road to victory at first singles while Chen, his doubles partner, won with closer scores 7-5, 6-4. Colby won in third and fourth singles with 6-3, 6-2 and 7-5, 6-4 scores respectively. Simon Kauppila ’23 secured the win at sixth singles 6-0, 6-3 followed by Tegtmeier’s 6-2, 6-2 win in fifth singles.
Over on the women’s side, the team went 1-1 in this week’s matches. Against Bentley, they secured a decisive 8-1 win while they lost 1-5 against Colby. This makes the team’s overall season record 3-5 so far.
The Waltham head-to-head kicked off as second and third doubles didn’t lose a game between the two. First doubles was closer as Ana Hatfield ’22 and Ella Subramanian ’24 came back from 4-5 down to clinch the set 7-5. The singles started off closer than the doubles. After a quick win with Parwani in first, Bentley proved victorious at third with a 6-1, 6-4 win. After Nikita Salkar ’24 won in second the score was 4-1 meaning the Judges needed only one more match to win. That came when Anastasia Sia ’25, playing at fifth, lost only two games on her road to a win followed by Jiayi Zhang’s ’24 double bagel win at sixth.
While the Colby match started wholly one-sided with a sweep in the doubles, Brandeis showed some late fight in the singles. After a quick Colby win in second singles, Parwani won 6-4, 6-3 at first bringing the match score to 1-4. To win, the Judges would have to score the four remaining matches. At third, Hatfield lost the first set in a close tiebreaker, 6-7 (5-7). Her grit didn’t waver until the very end, losing the second set 5-7.
The newly ninth seeded men’s team plays Denison and the University of Rochester at Gosman in back to back matches on March 18 and 19. The women’s team plays the University of Rochester on March 19 at home.
