Columbia Tennis Stars Shine at the NCAA Championships

NCAA Brackets/Info

In Waco, Texas, Columbia's Michael Zheng and Hugo Hashimoto are set to represent the Lions. Beginning this year, individual competitions occur in the fall instead of the spring. It's a two-year pilot program with team championships remaining in the spring. The singles tournament starts on Tuesday with 64 players, and the doubles tournament begins on Wednesday with 32 teams. Zheng qualified by winning three matches at the ITA All-American Championships. He defeated No. 61 Devin Badenhorst (Baylor), No. 26 Dhakshineswar Suresh (Wake Forest), and No. 17 JC Roddick (Texas A&M) to reach the quarterfinals and secure an automatic bid. The duo of Zheng and Hashimoto also advanced to the doubles semifinals at the ITA All-American Championships, defeating No. 41 Youcef Rihane/Alex Bulte (Florida State), No. 1 Petar Jovanovic/Benito Sanchez (Mississippi State), and No. 20 Julien Penzlin/Aleksi Lofman (LSU) to clinch an automatic berth. Hashimoto earned his singles spot by winning the singles bracket at the ITA Northeast Regional in October, posting six straight wins and defeating ranked opponents like No. 11 Paul Inchauspe (Princeton) and No. 84 Top Nidunjianzan (Princeton).

Zheng enters the singles bracket as the No. 2 overall seed after finishing as the singles runner-up at the NCAA Championships in May. He is just the second person in program history to earn ITA All-American status in two consecutive seasons. All matches will be streamed on ESPN+ with broadcasting by Cracked Racquets. Live video from the courts is available HERE, and a link to live scoring is available HERE.

First Round Matchups

In doubles, #21 Hugo Hashimoto/Michael Zheng will face #41 Youcef Rihane/Alex Bulte (Florida St.). In singles, #98 Hugo Hashimoto will take on #19 Trevor Svajda (SMU) at 2 p.m. ET Tuesday, and #2 Michael Zheng will face #24 Jeremy Jin (Florida) at 9 a.m. ET Tuesday.

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