Sunday, January 18
Knoxville, Tenn.
2 p.m.

Wake Forest University

at

Tennessee

The Deacons’ match against the Saint Joseph's Hawks on Sunday, January 11, 2026 at the Wake Forest ITC in Winston-Salem, NC / Wake Forest Athletics
Photo by: Seth Seebaugh / Wake Forest Athletics

No. 1 Demon Deacons Set For Road Test at Tennessee

1/17/2026 10:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis

Wake Forest will look to extend its 15-match win streak in true road contests Sunday.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Hitting the road for the first time in 2026, the No. 1-ranked Wake Forest men's tennis team will play the first of two-consecutive SEC opponents as it travels to Tennessee for a battle inside the Goodfriend Tennis Center Sunday.

First serve against the Volunteers is slated for 2 p.m. A live stream of the match will be provided via PlaySight, while live results can be found here.

The Demon Deacons will take a 15-match away winning streak into Sunday following a perfect 2025 campaign (10-0) in true road tests. Since 2013, Wake Forest has recorded the second-most overall wins in the country (357).

Of note, Wake Forest will look to earn back-to-back wins over Tennessee for the first time since it had a stretch of four-consecutive wins in the series from 2015-2017. The Demon Deacons have only won in Knoxville twice before, in 2016 (7-0) and 2017 (6-1).

With a win on Sunday, head coach Tony Bresky will move to just one victory away from 400 career wins as a head coach.

Last Time Out
The No. 1-ranked and defending national champion Wake Forest men's tennis team opened the 2026 season with a pair of victories over Saint Joseph's and ETSU last Sunday inside the Wake Forest Tennis Center.

With the sweep, Wake Forest has now started the season 2-0 for the fifth-consecutive season and extended its home winning streak to 30-consecutive matches dating back to April of 2024.

Five players made their dual-match debuts for the Demon Deacons with Mees Rottgering, Andrew Delgado, Kacper Szymkowiak, Dominick Mosejczuk and Ariel Zauber all taking the court on Sunday.

A year removed from taking 38 of 41 doubles points, the Demon Deacons picked up where they left off as they dominated the opening point in both matches on Sunday.

With his early doubles victory alongside Rottgering, Luca Pow surpassed 150 combined singles and doubles wins with the Demon Deacons and the Englishman would go on to earn a dominant 6-0, 6-1 win on the first singles court over Othman Bezzaz. Overall, Pow is now 79-16 in singles and 73-18 in doubles as a Demon Deacon.

In total, seven different Demon Deacons picked up singles victories as Guilleme and Cornelius Shalmi both went 2-0 on the day. Of note, Delgado, Mosejczuk, Szymkowiak and Zauber each recorded their first dual match wins as Wake Forest players. Guilleme improved to 11-0 in dual match play after a perfect 9-0 spring last season.

Wake Forest is now 30-2 against ETSU all-time, dating back to 1974, and have won 27-consecutive matches against the Buccaneers. Meanwhile, this was the first-ever meeting against the Hawks.

DK's Last Dance
A proven winner and one of the most decorated players in college tennis, DK Suresh Ekambaram returns   to Winston-Salem for his senior campaign. The standout is coming off a 2025 campaign in which he was named ACC Scholar-Athlete of the Year, earned ITA All-America honors in both singles and doubles, and collected First Team All-ACC recognition across the board. Suresh reached the semifinals of the NCAA Singles Championships in the fall and carried that form into dual play, serving as the team's No. 2 during both the ITA National Indoor and NCAA championship runs. He finished second on the team with 20 spring singles wins, with 11 coming against ranked opponents, and closed the season ranked No. 6 nationally after spending the entire year inside the top 10.

Suresh has also established himself as one of the nation's premier doubles players. He led Wake Forest with a 28–5 doubles record last season while teaming with seven different partners, ending the year nationally ranked in five pairings and climbing as high as No. 8 with Charlie Robertson. During his sophomore year, he and Holden Koons rose to No. 1 in the country, finished 25–5, and went 14–4 against ranked teams en route to First Team All-ACC honors.

Mr. Inevitable
Few players in the country have been more consistent over the last two seasons than Luca Pow, who enters his junior season as one of Wake Forest's most reliable match-winners. Pow followed up a superb freshman campaign with an even bigger step forward in 2025, earning ITA Doubles All-America honors, ACC All-Academic recognition and Third Team All-ACC accolades in doubles. He led the Demon Deacons with 31 singles victories in the spring, becoming the first Wake Forest player since Petros Chrysochos in 2018 to eclipse 30 wins, and pushed his career dual-match total to an astonishing 57–5 through two seasons. Along the way, Pow pieced together a 21-match winning streak and delivered five straight singles victories during the NCAA Tournament. In the fall, he made a run to the quarterfinals of the NCAA Singles Championships to earn Singles All-American status for the first time in his career.

Pow has been equally impactful in doubles. Teaming primarily with senior Luciano Tacchi last year, the pair finished 18–4 in the spring, went 2–0 at the ITA National Team Indoor Championship and secured a signature win over Florida State's third-ranked tandem of Bulte/Rihane. The duo also captured the ITA Carolina Regional title, continuing momentum that began in Pow's freshman season, when he and Tacchi went 20–6 together and won nine of their final 10 matches.

As a freshman, Pow burst onto the scene with a 25–2 singles record while primarily playing at No. 5, including a 19-match win streak to close the year and a perfect 14–0 mark at that position. He picked up his first ranked win early against Florida's Janmagnus Johnson and even climbed into the ITA singles rankings at No. 78. With two seasons of elite consistency already behind him, Pow returns as a proven point-getter who gives Wake Forest exceptional depth and confidence in both singles and doubles.

Of note, he recently surpassed 150 combined wins for the Demon Deacons with 79 singles wins and 73 doubles wins (fall and spring).

Reloaded
While the Demon Deacons return half of their top six from a year ago as well as top young talents in redshirt-freshman Andrew Delgado and sophomore Joaquin Guilleme, head coach Tony Bresky brought in three highly-touted freshman and a top transfer to help bolster the squad for another deep NCAA tournament run.

Newcomers
  • Aryan Shah | Freshman | Bhuj, India
    • Shah arrived in Winston-Salem with significant professional and international experience, having emerged over the last two years as a dynamic all-court player known for his reliable serve, composure and baseline consistency. He holds the highest ATP singles ranking on the team at 398.
    • On the professional circuit, Shah has captured two ITF Futures singles titles, the 2024 M15 Kingston championship and the 2025 M15 Ahmedabad crown, while also winning a 2024 M15 Kingston doubles title. His progress earned him the opportunity to represent India as a reserve player during the nation's 2024 Davis Cup tie against Sweden.
  • Mees Rottgering | Freshman | Wanssum, Netherlands
    • Rottgering first gained national attention in 2023 when, at just 16 years old, he reached the semifinals of the Dutch Senior National Championships, going toe-to-toe with top professional Gijs Brouwer.
    • He followed that performance with a historic 2024 campaign on the international stage. In February 2024, Rottgering advanced to the semifinals of the Australian Open Boys' Singles and reached a Futures final in Sharm El Sheikh, becoming the only 16-year-old ranked inside the ATP Top 1000 that season. That run also made him the youngest Dutch man ever to appear in an ITF World Tennis Tour singles final.
    • Rottgering continued his ascent at Wimbledon, where he defeated top seed and French Open junior champion Kaylan Bigun in the quarterfinals before advancing to the championship match. He finished runner-up to Nicolai Budkov Kjær after a remarkable two-week run on the grass courts of London.
    • Capping off his junior career, Rottgering claimed the prestigious 2024 ITF Junior Finals title in October, defeating Spain's Rafael Jódar (Virginia) in straight sets.
    • Rottgering officially made his ATP Tour debut in February 2025 at the ABN AMRO Open in Rotterdam, receiving a main-draw wildcard in front of his home crowd. The appearance marked the next step in a promising career trajectory that now continues in collegiate tennis with the Demon Deacons.
  • Kacper Szymkowiak | Sophomore (Prev. MTSU) | Wroclaw, Poland
    • As a freshman at Middle Tennessee State, he won his first 11 singles matches, setting a program record for best start to a singles career. He went on to be named CUSA Freshmen of the Year and CUSA All-Conference First Team Singles.
    • He started the season playing on court five before playing six matches at the top spot and finished 12-2 in singles and 6-9 in doubles.
    • Played on the Polish and Tunisian circuits and reached as high as #134 globally in the ITF junior rankings.
  • Dominick Mosejczuk | Freshman | Queens, N.Y.
    • Mosejczuk comes in as a five star recruit in the class of 2025.
    • He ranked as the #3 recruit in the class and #1 in New York
    • Has a high ITF Juniors ranking of #22 with seven titles to his name.

Preseason Number One
The Demon Deacons were tabbed as the best team in the nation in the preseason ITA poll after spending most of last season in the top spot, and is one of eight ACC teams ranked inside the top 25 to open the year. Individually, Wake Forest has two singles players and three doubles pairs ranked.

Singles
DK Suresh Ekambaram #12
Luca Pow #15
Kacper Szymkowiak #64
Andrew Delgado #96

Doubles
Suresh/Delgado #4

The Bresky Era
Since arriving at Wake Forest, head coach Tony Bresky has enjoyed a highly-decorated career, winning ITA National Coach of the Year in 2018 and 2025, along with garnering ACC Coach of the Year honors in 2013, 2016 and 2025. 

Bresky led Wake Forest to its first-ever national title in 2018, after accumulating a 33-2 mark and most recently led one of the most dominant seasons in collegiate tennis history as the Deacs won 40 matches en route to capturing the ACC regular season title, ITA Indoor Title and NCAA Championship.

Individually, Bresky has coached two ACC Players of the Year (Noah Rubin and Melios Efstathiou), along with 40 All-ACC selections and 12 ITA Singles All-Americans.

During his tenure at Wake Forest, Bresky has amassed 371 wins. Of note, early in 2023 with a victory over No. 6 Tennessee, Bresky became the winningest coach in program history, surpassing the legendary Jim Leighton.

Wake Forest's Team Success Under Bresky
  • NCAA Championship: 2018, 2025
  • ACC Tournament: 2016, 2018, 2019
  • ACC Regular Season: 2017, 2018, 2019, 2025
  • ITA National Team Indoor Championship: 2018, 2025

Bresky's teams have also excelled in the classroom during his stint in Winston-Salem, as he's coached 27 All-ACC Academic Team honorees and an ACC Men's Tennis Scholar Athlete of the Year.

Next Up
After Sunday's match, Wake Forest will remain on the road for another tough SEC test, as it visits No. 2 Texas on Wednesday, Jan. 21.

The Deacs will return home for ITA Kickoff Weekend (Jan. 23-24) as it welcomes Virginia Tech, Vanderbilt and North Carolina to the ITC for a spot in the ITA National Team Indoor Championships.

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