WACO, Texas – Georgia’s Dasha Vidmanova and Columbia’s Michael Zheng won NCAA singles tennis titles on Sunday.
Vidmanova, a 21-year-old senior from the Czech Republic, defeated Auburn’s DJ Bennett 6-3, 6-3 for the Bulldogs’ first women’s singles championship since 2010 and became the fourth singles champion in program history.
Vidmanova is the only Bulldog in program history to win both the NCAA singles and doubles titles after winning the doubles title with Aysegul Mert last season.
It was the second straight season that a Georgia women’s tennis player advanced to the title match, after Anastasia Lopata lost to Miami’s Alexa Noel last year.
Bennett was the first player in Auburn’s program history to advance to the conference finals, besting Fani Chifchieva’s record of reaching the semifinals in 2008, the previous Tiger record.
Zheng, a 20-year-old junior from Montville, New Jersey, defeated Michigan State’s Ozan Baris 6-2, 4-6, 6-2 to become the first Ivy League player to win the NCAA men’s singles title since 1922.
The final between Zheng and Baris was the first men’s NCAA tennis singles final between two Americans since 2017.
Zheng, who became the first men’s Ivy League champion since Yale University’s Lucien Williams 100 years ago, is the first player to advance to back-to-back men’s finals since USC’s Steve Johnson in 2011 and 2012.
TCU’s Pedro Vives Marcos and Lui Maxted won the men’s doubles title, while Virginia’s Elaine Chervinsky and Melodie Collard won the women’s doubles title.
Vives Marcos and Maxted defeated Michigan’s Gavin Young and Benjamin Kittay 6-3. 6-7 (8-6), 1-0 (10-2). The 10-point tiebreaker to determine the national champion included five service breaks, four of which went to the Horned Frogs, who won the final six points to clinch the title.
Young and Kittay became the first doubles runners-up in Michigan men’s tennis history.
Chervinsky and Collard won the first NCAA doubles title in program history by defeating UCLA’s Olivia Center and Kate Fakih, both freshmen, 4-6, 6-3, 1-0 (10-5) in the final. The Cavaliers’ duo won each of their five matches in the championship in a three-set, 10-point super tiebreaker.