DENVER – The University of Denver men's tennis team (18-6, 5-0 Summit) is ranked No. 3 in the in the 2025-26 ITA Regional Rankings, which were released on Wednesday.
Additionally, four student-athletes earned singles and/or doubles rankings in the ITA Mountain Regional.
Denver has now been ranked in the top three of the ITA Mountain Regional for six consecutive years.
DU won its third consecutive Summit League title and its eighth overall on its way to an 11
th appearance at the NCAA tournament in 2026 and ranked as high as No. 71 nationally during the season. Denver went 7-2 against its fellow ITA Mountain Regional teams during the 2026 dual season.
Leading the Pioneers in the individual rankings is senior
Raffaello Papajcik, who comes at No. 5 in the regional singles rankings after going 21-8 on the year including 17-5 in the spring dual season. The Summit League Player of the Year was 13-4 when playing at the No. 1 singles position and was a perfect 5-0 in league matches. His five dual-clinching singles wins were the most on the roster, and he won 10 total matches in straight sets. In the fall season, he advanced to the ITA Mountain Regional Championships singles quarterfinals.
This is Papajcik's second year in a row to make the ITA Mountain Regional rankings, gaining five spots from his No. 10 regional ranking in 2025.
Sophomore
Samuel Rovai joins Papajcik in the top 10 of the regional singles rankings, taking the No. 9 spot. He finished with a 20-6 singles record in 2025-26 including 14-5 in the dual season, playing primarily at the No. 2 position (11-2 record). He added a 5-0 record against Summit League opponents in singles and earned All-Summit League Team honors for a second year in a row. Also like Papajcik, he made it to the singles quarterfinals of the ITA Mountain Regional Championship in the fall.
This is Rovai's first ITA Regional ranking of his career so far.
Fellow sophomore
Theo Coats cracked the ITA Mountain Regional rankings in both singles and doubles, coming in at No. 12 in the singles rankings. He led the roster with an impressive 30-6 record on the year and gathered a 17-4 record at No. 3 singles. He also earned a win at his first appearance at the No. 2 spot. Like his fellow regional singles-ranked teammates, he finished with a perfect 5-0 record in Summit League play in singles on his way to earning an All-Summit League Team nod. In the fall, he won the Bedford Cup singles title and became the third Pioneer to advance to the singles quarterfinals of the ITA Mountain Regional Championship.
This is Coats' first time in the ITA Mountain Regional singles rankings, though this is his second in a row doing so in the doubles rankings. This year, he does so with graduate student
Connor Robb-Wilcox at the No. 4 spot – a repeat of Coats' regional doubles ranking a season ago.
Together, the doubles duo of Coats/Robb-Wilcox was the winningest doubles pairing for Denver in 2025-26, going 17-5 together including 12-5 during the spring dual season. They split the year between the Nos. 1 and 2 doubles spots but finished the year with 15 consecutive matches played at the top position in the lineup and achieving a 7-3 record. They first teamed up at the Bedford Cup in the fall, making it to the final before falling in a tiebreak.
This is Robb-Wilcox's first career ITA regional ranking in either singles or doubles.
Denver has now had three regionally-ranked singles players in five of the last six years and at least two in 16 of the last 17 years that the rankings have been issued.
Coats/Robb-Wilcox extended DU's streak of having at least one doubles team in the ITA regional rankings to three and seven of the last eight.
The ITA Division I Regional Rankings recognize the top 10 teams, the top 20 singles players and the top 10 doubles teams for each of its 12 regionals.
Denver is one of 16 members of the ITA Mountain Regional and is joined by Air Force, Boise State, BYU, Idaho, Idaho State, Montana, Montana State, Nevada, New Mexico, New Mexico State, Northern Arizona, UNLV, Utah, Utah State and Weber State.
DENVER IN THE FINAL 2025-26 ITA RANKINGS
Mountain Regional Team Ranking: No. 3
Mountain Regional Singles Rankings:
Raffaello Papajcik: No. 5
Samuel Rovai: No. 9
Theo Coats: No. 12
Mountain Regional Doubles Rankings:
Coats/Robb-Wilcox: No. 4
