OJAI, Calif. (Apr. 28, 2024) – Sophomore
Yash Nagdev of the Whittier College men's tennis team became the first Whittier men's player to win the Ojai Division III West Region Men's Singles Championship with his victory over the seventh-seeded player from Occidental College.
The sophomore started hot with a 6-1, 6-1 victory over Santiago Suarez of the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in the first round. The winner would have played second-seeded Ronald Chen of Occidental College, but with Chen's withdrawal, Nagdev walked over into the third round where he drew Zachary Farris of Letourneau University. He won 6-1, 6-3.
Chaos ensued when the top-seeded player from the University of Redlands, Nicolas Calixto, withdrew on the other side of the draw, opening things up for lower seeded, and in Nagdev's case, unseeded players to make plenty of noise deep into the tournament. Teammate
Julius Clasen, the tournament's third-seeded player, beat Mary Hardin-Baylor's Nicolas Cusano in the second round, but fell to eventual tournament finalist Brett Miller of Occidental College in three sets.
As for Nagdev, he kept up his winning ways with another dominant win, this time over Omar Khayat of Redlands, the benefactor of Calixto's withdrawal. Like he did against Farris of Letourneau, Nagdev won 6-1, 6-3 to book a spot in the championship against Miller. While Miller needed three sets to turn away Clasen, Nagdev needed just two to beat Miller in his toughest test of the tournament. He won the match 6-3, 7-5, and made Whittier history in the process as the champion of such a prestigious singles tournament with over a century's worth of history to it.
Nagdev was not the only Poet to make noise at The Ojai over the weekend. Junior
Ahmed Amer teamed with Clasen to embark on a run through the men's doubles draw that took them all the way to the final. The duo dominated their first two matches after walking over in the first round due to a withdrawal from California Lutheran's doubles team. This put them in the finals against Calixto and Khayat from Redlands in a match contested under standard three-set doubles rules as opposed to the eight-game pro sets that are typical for Division III.
Amer and Clasen fell, 6-3, 6-3, but likewise made history as the first ever Whittier doubles team to make a final at The Ojai.
Nagdev and the Poets should have plenty to build on for next year with the entire team slated to return, eager to build on the lessons learned over the 2023-24 season.
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