Columbia's Zheng Goes Back-to-Back, UNC's Brantmeier Claims Women's Singles Title at NCAA Division I Championships; Stoiana Wins Second Straight W50; USTA Pro Circuit Titles for Smith, Maxted and Pace

Columbia's Michael Zheng etched his name among the greats of college tennis Sunday at the USTA National Campus in Lake Nona Florida, winning his second straight NCAA men's singles title with a 6-4, 1-6, 6-3 victory over SMU's Trevor Svajda.

Zheng didn't play particularly well in the first set, but Svajda also did not compete at the level he showed in the three previous matches, with the occasion no doubt the cause of nervous errors from both. Five of the ten games were determined by deciding points, and while Zheng won just two of them, he got the most important one, a set point serving at 5-4.

Svajda looked more comfortable in the second set, and won a key deciding point serving at 3-1 to take control of it. Zheng admitted he was willing to let that set go in order to make a fresh start in the third set.

"I thought he was hitting his forehand really well today," the 21-year-old from New Jersey told Cracked Racquets' Alex Gruskin. "After that deuce point, when I missed that mid-court forehand to get the break back for the second time, I was like, you know, maybe I just give him the second set, try to refocus and make more first serves in the third."

Zheng took a bathroom break, and his experience, with this his third straight appearance in the final, was evident from the opening game. He held at love, after losing all three of his service games in the second set, and begun holding serve more easily. Svajda, in contrast, needed deciding points on his first two service games to keep himself in the match. But his net game, so solid earlier, let him down with a missed volley at 30-40 giving Zheng the break at a 4-2 lead. That was all Zheng needed, and he held in his next two service games to win his 12th consecutive match in NCAA singles competition.

Zheng is the first player since USC's Stevie Johnson to win back-to-back titles, and is the ninth man to do that since the NCAA began sponsoring the individual intercollegiate championships in 1938. He now holds the men's modern record (since 1977) for most NCAA singles wins with 19.

Reese Brantmeier of North Carolina also won her second NCAA title with the 21-year-old senior from Wisconsin adding a singles title to the team title she earned as a freshman in 2023, with a 6-3, 6-3 victory over Berta Passola Folch of Cal.

Brantmeier, a 9-16 seed, won every first set she played this week, but in four of her previous five matches she dropped the second set. Today's final started similarly, but it Passola Folch who appeared more confident in her service games to start, with Brantmeier needing to save eight break points just to keep pace. 

"She was stepping up and taking it to me in those return games," Brantmeier told Gruskin. "I think my first serve percentage was definitely dwindling a little bit, so she was getting a lot of second serve looks and really putting the pressure on me. I was just trying to approach it one point at a time; when you're down 0-40 on your serve multiple times, and you start counting those break points, it's not ideal. Winning one point on my serve feels more manageable than having to rattle off three or four in a row."

After getting the first break to go up 4-3, Brantmeier pulled herself out of one of those 0-40 holes and then broke at love, to end the set with eight consecutive points.

The second set was close until 3-3, but Passola Folch could not convert the two break points she had, ending 0-10 in that department, with Brantmeier taking the final three games to win the Tar Heels' second NCAA women's singles title. 

After all her injuries and the ongoing lawsuit she has filed against the NCAA, Brantmeier has had plenty of adversity and distraction in her career at North Carolina, but this week she was able to bring herself back from the brink, playing her best when it mattered most. Down 5-2 in the final set in the first round against Bridget Stammel  of Vanderbilt, Brantmeier is now the 2025 NCAA women's singles champion, an accomplishment she rates just below her team title.

"This is so incredibly meaningful to me," Brantmeier said. "Obviously, there's recency bias, but this is up there. I think the team title takes the cake for sure, but doing it here in singles is a full circle moment. It's just a credit to the amazing people I get to surround myself with everyday, all credit to Carolina and the amazing staff and my team."

The doubles titles both went to unseeded teams, with Dylan Dietrich and Mans Dahlberg of Virginia defeated Ohio State's Nikita Filin and Brandon Carpico 7-6(3), 6-2 in the men's final.

Dietrich and Dahlberg took out top seeds Benito Sanchez Martinez and Petar Jovanovic of Mississippi State in the second round and had no letdown, losing only one set en route to the University of Virginia's fourth NCAA men's doubles title. 

The North Carolina State team of Victoria Osuigwe and Gabriella Broadfoot won the Wolfpack's second NCAA women's doubles title, beating No. 4 seeds Celia-Belle Mohr and Sophia Webster of Vanderbilt 7-5, 6-4. 

Mohr and Webster were up 3-1 in the second set, but freshman Osuigwe and junior Broadfoot claimed five of the next six games to earn the title. 

Singles and doubles draws for the women's tournament can be found here; singles and doubles draws for the men's tournament are here.

Former ITA Player of the Year Mary Stoiana, a 2025 graduate of Texas A&M, won her second consecutive W50, this one in Chihuahua Mexico. 

After the 22-year-old from Connecticut, who won the M50 in Austin last week, won her third ITF women's Pro Circuit title last night in a three-hour battle with LSU sophomore Kayla Cross of Canada. Stoiana, the No. 6 seed, defeated No. 2 seed Cross 7-6(2), 6-7(6), 6-2, her second win over Cross this month.

With the 50 points, Stoiana moves to a career high of 228 and is close to the likely cutoff for the 2026 Australian Open qualifying, which will be announced next month.

Top seeds Anna Rogers(NC State) and Dalayna Hewitt won the doubles title, beating Ariana Arseneault(Georgia, Auburn) and Raphaelle Lacasse(Kansas, Nebraska) of Canada 6-3, 6-0 in the final.

There is just one more event on the USTA Pro Circuit calendar for 2025, a W35 in Daytona Beach Florida the first week of December, so the men are done for the year with the M15 in Tallahassee Florida and the M25 in Austin Texas ending today.

Keegan Smith added the singles title to the doubles title he won Friday in Tallahassee, with the top seed and former UCLA All-American defeating No. 4 seed Ryan Fishback(Virginia Tech) 6-3, 6-3.

Great Britain's Lui Maxted, who, like Smith, is a former NCAA doubles champion, added a singles title to his doubles title in Austin, with the No. 5 seed beating qualifier Andreja Petrovic(North Dakota, Florida State, Duke) 6-2, 6-3 in the final. The recent TCU grad has now won three singles and five doubles titles on the ITF men's Pro Circuit since graduating this spring.

At the W35 in Boca Raton Florida, 18-year-old Akasha Urhobo, the No. 5 seed, lost to No. 3 seed Francesca Pace of Italy 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 in the final. Pace, who also defeated Urhobo in three sets last month at a W35 in California, is the daughter of former WTA Top 20 player Irina Spirlea of Romania.