LEXINGTON, Va. – The Old Dominion Athletic Conference announced the seedings for the upcoming ODAC Men's Tennis Championship and Washington and Lee has claimed the top seed.
W&L has won 14 straight conference championships and 42 ODAC Championships since the league began play back in 1977. The last team other than W&L that claimed the conference crown was Hampden-Sydney back in 2009. The tournament will begin on Wednesday with quarterfinal play at each of the top four seeds. Both semifinal matches and the championship match will also be contested at Washington and Lee University, regardless of the outcomes of the Generals' matches.
The Generals (14-6, 9-0 ODAC) will host eighth-seeded Lynchburg (8-6, 3-6 ODAC) in Wednesday's quarterfinal at 2:00 p.m. Should W&L advance, the Generals would then face the winner of the quarterfinal between fourth-seeded Shenandoah (11-6, 6-3 ODAC) and fifth-seeded Virginia Wesleyan (9-9, 6-3 ODAC) on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. The two winning teams on Saturday will then meet on Sunday at 1:00 p.m. for the ODAC title.
W&L is led into the 2025 conference championship by five players with 10 or more singles wins and a consistent lineup that has seen six players log 17 or more singles matches. Pacing the bunch is senior and nationally 39th-ranked
Evan Erb who is 13-6 overall and 10-3 from the No. 1 singles position. Erb's season has been highlighted by wins over then ninth-ranked Chakor Rajendra of Johns Hopkins and then sixth-ranked Kael Shah of Denison, who was most recently ranked second in the country in the latest ITA poll.
Sophomore
Heys Parker follows Erb in singles wins this season, mostly playing out of the No. 5 spot with a 6-3 record, and occasionally moving up to No. 4 where he has won 3-of-5 matches. Senior
James Kurani has posted an 11-10 overall record this season, but owns a 5-2 mark at No. 3 singles, with senior
Will Kistler (10-10) and sophomore
Sanjheev Rao (10-8) rounding out the 10-win Generals, who have both won over two-thirds of their matches from No. 2 (8-4) and No. 6 (6-2), respectively.
Wrapping up the projected singles lineup is senior
Eli Hirshberg who is 7-10 overall this season, with most of his matches (7) coming from the No. 4 position and an additional five matches at No. 3.
Three doubles teams have stood out throughout the season and figure to be in action this week. Erb and Kistler will lead the team from the No. 1 spot, as they hold a 10-4 record at top flight doubles this season and a 12-5 overall record in all doubles matches.
W&L has mixed and matched its No. 2 and No. 3 spots periodically this season, but it has been the same two tandems switching between the two positions in the lineup. Hirshberg and Parker are 7-7 across all doubles matches, with a 3-2 mark at No. 2 and 2-4 at No. 3. Kurani and first-year
Ryan Good have been the Generals' most common No. 2 team, playing in eight matches there, with another four matches at No. 3, second-most on the team behind Hirshberg/Parker.
Live scoring and live video will be available for all men's tennis matches in Lexington this weekend. Live video can be found
here, while live scoring links will become available on the iOnCourt app as matchups are determined throughout the tournament.
Nestled in the mountains of Virginia, Washington and Lee University is a proud member of NCAA Division III and the Old Dominion Athletic Conference. Founded in 1749, W&L is the ninth-oldest college in the United States and a top-ranked liberal arts university. With over 500 student-athletes in 24 varsity sports, the Generals have celebrated over 265 conference championships. Learn more about the Blue and White by visiting www.generalssports.com or on social media at @WLUGenerals.
