Noah Laber and Thehan Wijemanne of the #7 Middlebury men's tennis squad have been selected to compete in the NCAA Individual Championships. The tandem will compete in the doubles bracket of 16 pairs, while Laber will play for a national title on the singles sideof 32 players. The individual tournament begins on Sunday, May 23 following the conclusion of the team championships at the Biszantz Family Tennis Center in Claremont, California on the campus of Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (CMS). The draws for the individual championships will be released on May 22 sometime after 1:00 p.m.
 
ABOUT THE PANTHERS

• Laber (Singles Bracket)
  • Laber recently earned his third individual All-NESCAC honor and landed a spot on the first team for the second time in his career.
  • He owns a 16-3 record this spring and had an eight-match unbeaten streak heading into the NESCAC Tournament. 
  • Laber owns a 61-25 career mark in singles play, including a personal-best 22 victories this year.
  • He is currently ranked as the #7 singles player across Division III and #2 in the Northeast region. 
  • The senior was selected to participate in the singles event two years ago but didn't compete.
  • In the field of 32 athletes, Laber has competed against nine other participants this year. He has played Bowdoin's Mark Kneiss (2-0), Claremont-Mudd-Scripps' Warren Pham (1-0), Colby's Jake Cohen (1-1) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Kallas Kahler (1-0). He also played Pomona Pitzer's Drew Goldman (0-1), Redlands' Dominic Anderson (1-0), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's Aiden Drover-Mattinen (0-1), Tufts' Vuk Vuksanovic (0-2) and Williams' Nicholas Chen (1-0). 
  • He seeks to become just the third Panther to win a national crown in singles, joining Lubomir Cuba (2017) and Stan Morris (2022) who previously earned the honor.
• Laber & Wijemanne (Doubles Bracket)
  • The duo of Laber and Wijemanne was named to the All-NESCAC First Team. The honor is the first for Wijemanne, while Laber earns doubles praise for the third time.
  • The pair owns a 15-3 overall record together and has played nearly every match at the top spot of the lineup this season.
  • The tandem has claimed five-straight victories heading into NCAA Tournament play and posted a 5-2 record against conference foes.
  • Laber and Wijemanne are ranked fifth nationally in Division III and second among the Northeast regional tandems.
  • From the 16 doubles pairs selected, Laber and Wijemanne have played four of them this season, including two matchups against Vuksanovic and Javier Gonzalez from Tufts. The tandem has posted a 3-2 overall record in those contests.
  • Laber and Wijemanne look to be Middlebury's third National Championship doubles team, with titles coming from Cuba and William de Quant (2017) and Cuba and Kyle Schlanger (2018). 

ABOUT THE COMPETITION

• The singles bracket will feature a new winner as Bowdoin's Tristan Bradley graduated.
• In the doubles draw, Gage Gohl and Tyler Haddorf return to defend their 2024 title. This spring, the duo is ranked 10th in the country with an 18-8 mark. Gohl is also competing individually and has tallied a 20-12 record this year. 
• The Denison pair of Ethan Green and Kael Shah sport a 28-5 mark together and enter the bracket as the top-ranked duo. Each Big Red player earned a place in the bracket for singles as Shah (28-6) is #3 and Green (24-6) is the fourth-ranked player among Division III peers.
• Advik Mareedu from CMS comes into the singles bracket with an undefeated record of 28-0 and garners the top spot in the rankings. 
• Other notable competitors include second-ranked Vuksanovic (23-3) of Tufts. The Jumbo will also play in doubles with Gonzalez and come into the tournament at #3 nationally. Carnegie Mellon's Alex Feies (25-7) is the fifth-ranked player individually, while the University of Chicago pair of Andrei Leonov and Pat Otero is 13-6 and is #2 in the national rankings. 

TOURNAMENT INFORMATION

• Championship Central

The Panthers start the team position of the NCAA Championship action on Saturday, May 10 in the second round in Maryland. Middlebury plays the first-round victor between Allegheny and Nichols at 10:00 a.m.