DENVER – The No. 61-ranked University of Denver men's tennis team (18-6, 5-0 Summit League) will play No. 10-ranked Arizona in the first round of the 2025 NCAA Division I Men's Tennis Championship on Friday, May 2, at 1 p.m. MST/2 p.m. MDT.
 
Arizona is the nation's No. 10 seed and will host this weekend's first and second rounds. The region's other first-round match features No. 20-ranked Harvard and No. 39-ranked Washington with the winner facing the winner of the Denver/Arizona match in Saturday's second round.
 
LAST TIME OUT:
Denver successfully defended its Summit League title with a 4-0 sweep against North Dakota in the championship match on April 19. DU did not drop a point on its way to the tournament title, starting play with a 5-0 sweep against Illinois State in the semifinals.
 
With this year's championship, Denver has won the Summit League title seven times including three of the last five.
 
DU's top six singles players all earned places on the 2025 All-Summit League Team, led by Summit League Player of the Year Daniel Sancho Arbizu, who enters the NCAA tournament ranked No. 47 nationally in singles. Head coach Drew Eberly also won his third straight Summit League Coach of the Year award.
 
DENVER'S NCAA TOURNAMENT HISTORY:
This marks Denver's second consecutive appearance in the NCAA Division I team championship field and its 10^th overall. The Pioneers' best result is a second-round appearance in 2013 after Denver upset Florida, 4-3, after rallying from a 1-3 deficit. In three more NCAA appearances, DU nearly advanced to the second round but fell, 3-4.
 
Last season, DU was the No. 3 seed in the Cambridge Region and played No. 19-ranked Michigan State in the first round. The Spartans won the match, 4-0, though the contest was closer than the final scoreline suggested. The doubles point came down to tiebreaks at the Nos. 2 and 3 courts, and Denver had forced third sets in Nos. 2 and 5 singles after battling through multiple 7-5 and 7-6 sets.
 
Denver's first NCAA tournament appearance was in 2008, and the Pioneers made five consecutive appearances from 2013-17.
 
This is the first year of a two-year pilot program that separates the NCAA singles and doubles championships, which were held in the fall. Two Pioneers advanced to the national singles draw in Sancho Arbizu and junior Raffaello Papajcik, who became the first Denver men's singles player to win a match at the NCAA Division I singles tournament.
 
DENVER'S HISTORY AGAINST THE FIELD:
Arizona: Denver leads Arizona, 4-3, head-to-head. The teams have not met since March 10, 2017, in a 4-3 DU win at home. Denver also won the last time it played in Tucson, coming away with a 5-2 victory on February 21, 2016. This will be the first time the Pioneers and the Wildcats will play in the NCAA tournament.
 
Harvard: Harvard holds a 3-1 edge against Denver in their previous four meetings, though DU won the most recent dual, 4-2, in a neutral-site match held in San Diego on March 18, 2016. Denver and Harvard have now been placed in the same NCAA regional for the second year in a row after Harvard hosted DU in 2024 – though the teams did not play each other and have never met in the NCAA tournament.
 
Washington: DU and UW have met three times previously with all three results going the way of the Huskies. The teams have not played one another since February 4, 2011, in a 6-1 win for Washington at home. None of their three meetings came in the NCAA tournament.
 
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