#1 National Singles Ranking · 4× SCIAC Athlete of the Year · SCIAC Character Award · 41–1 Singles Record (2024–25)

A rare scholar-leader-athlete for whom every calculus proof, every competitive match, and every hour of community service runs on the same engine: discipline rooted in genuine care - for the work, for the people around him, and for something larger than himself. Advik Mareedu has spent four years at Harvey Mudd and on the CMS tennis courts quietly becoming one of the finest student-athletes in Division III history. The trophies confirm it. The people who know him best already knew.

The Athlete
There is a particular kind of steadiness that defines great competitors, a capacity to remain centered when the situation demands you come apart. Watch Advik Mareedu long enough and you begin to understand that his game is almost an extension of his character: composed, relentless, built for the long haul.

Arriving at Harvey Mudd College from Valencia High School in Yorba Linda as a 5-star recruit ranked as high as No. 64 in his national class, Mareedu wasted little time announcing himself. In his first semester of college tennis, he won nine consecutive singles matches, captured the ITA Division III West Regionals and the ITA Cup in Rome, Georgia, and ascended to the No. 1 singles ranking in all of Division III.

The recognition followed swiftly: SCIAC Newcomer of the Year, ITA Rookie of the Year at both the regional and national level, and a consensus first-team All-SCIAC selection before his freshman year was even complete. It was, by any measure, one of the most auspicious debuts in program history, and yet the most remarkable thing about it was that it turned out to be merely the opening chapter.

Over four seasons, the accolades have arrived with the same quiet consistency as his results. He has been named SCIAC Athlete of the Year four consecutive times, every year he has competed, making him only the second student-athlete in conference history across any sport to achieve that distinction in all four seasons of eligibility. The ITA recognized him as an All-American in both singles and doubles across all four seasons, and his academic record earned him the CSC Academic All-American Team Member of the Year award alongside multiple ITA Scholar-Athlete honors.

In 2024–25 he added the CMS Athlete of the Year and the team's Most Valuable Player award to a career that culminated in the NCAA Division III singles championship, the seventh in Stags Tennis history, capped by a 41-1 record and a No. 1 national ranking he held from November through the final match of the spring.

But perhaps the most telling honor of his senior year arrived alongside all of that. The SCIAC Character Award is given to a senior who best exemplifies success on the court, in the classroom, and in service to the broader community. It is the one award no ranking can capture. And in many ways, it is the one that completes the picture of who Advik Mareedu is.

Defining Moments
2022–23 · Freshman Year - A debut for the record books
Nine straight wins out of the gate. The ITA West Regionals title. The ITA Cup in Rome. And before his first college year was done, the No. 1 national ranking in Division III. Mareedu also claimed SCIAC Newcomer of the Year and ITA Rookie of the Year, nationally and regionally, finishing 30–6 in singles, the eighth-best single-season mark in program history.

2023–24 · Sophomore Year - From the canvas to the finals
"We got pretty badly beaten at indoors, and after that it really pushed us to raise our level." That adversity became fuel, and watching Mareedu absorb a painful team loss and respond not with retreat but with renewed commitment set a standard the whole roster felt. CMS went on a run all the way to the NCAA team finals, and Mareedu personally avenged a home-court loss to Bowdoin's Tristan Bradley with a gutty three-set victory that clinched the team's semifinal. He finished the year ranked No. 3 nationally in singles.

2024–25 · Junior Year - The season of the champion
Three consecutive ITA Regional titles (a first in Stags history), a second ITA Cup singles crown, the team's first-ever ITA National Team Indoor championship, and ultimately the NCAA singles title. Twenty consecutive sets won through the NCAA tournament without a single set lost. A 41-1 record. The No. 1 national ranking from November through spring. And a doubles partnership with Josh Kim that reached the national top ten, a reminder that even in his most dominant individual season, Mareedu kept showing up for the team game too.

Beyond the Baseline
To understand what sets Mareedu apart requires a look not just at his tennis, but at the environment in which he has built it. Harvey Mudd College is not a place that makes double lives easy. One of the most demanding STEM institutions in the country, it is not a place where a student can afford to treat academics as secondary.

Mareedu has not just survived this environment; he has thrived in it, double majoring in computer science and mathematics while climbing to the top of his sport. When asked how he manages the balance, his answer is revealing: it is less about separation than integration.

"My STEM education has mainly taught me how to work hard and push through hard times, especially when things get challenging or don't go as planned," Mareedu said. "The academic discipline also translates directly to discipline on court, especially in staying focused, prepared, and consistent."

The hardest class he has taken? Mechanics - and he notes, without any particular irony, that tennis felt like a mental break during that stretch. When one world is hard enough to recalibrate your sense of difficulty, it tends to make the other feel manageable. That reframing is not accidental; it is a skill Mareedu has cultivated over four years.

"Discipline in the classroom, staying consistent with studying and managing time, has helped me stay disciplined on the court with training, preparation, and competing through tough situations," he said.

That same ethic has extended beyond the classroom and the court. As a leader within CMS's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, Mareedu has volunteered his time mentoring students at Sycamore Elementary School and serving with the Pomona Promise homeless meal program. For someone with a schedule as demanding as his, these are not incidental commitments, they are deliberate ones, and they reflect the same intentionality that has defined everything else he has done at Harvey Mudd.

The Team Behind the Player
The story of Advik Mareedu is not, in his telling, primarily a story about individual accomplishment. It is a story about a team, and about the kind of presence a person can be within one.

"Being part of the team has been the most rewarding part," he said. "We're all really close friends, so it's been fun growing with them and competing together through the highs and lows of the season. I know I'm going to miss being around them when I graduate."

That closeness has shaped how the team competes and how it prepares. "Academically, we'll study together, share notes, and check in with each other when things get busy so no one falls behind," he explains.

On the court, that same spirit of accountability runs in both directions. Teammate Ethan Kim is, by Mareedu's account, the one who pushes him hardest, the voice that cuts through low-energy days and pulls him back to his best. The fact that Mareedu, the top-ranked player in the country, readily names someone who keeps him accountable says something about the culture he has both inherited and helped sustain.

Ask him about the most memorable moment in his time at CMS and he does not reach for a personal highlight. Instead, he describes a tournament final on their home courts when teammate Anirudh Gupta found himself in a dire position against Bowdoin, came all the way back to win, and set the room off. It is the kind of memory that belongs to a team, not a résumé.

A defining factor in how that culture has been built? Head coach Paul Settles.

"Talking with Coach Settles during the recruiting process, hearing how much he emphasizes developing both as a person and as a tennis player, that's when I knew it was the right fit. That made me feel like I could grow in both areas, and that's when I knew."

It is a philosophy Mareedu has not just received but embodied, in how he competes, how he studies, how he shows up for teammates, and how he shows up beyond campus. The Character Award did not come from a committee that watched him play. It came from a community that watched him lead.
 
Life on the Claremont Campuses
Somewhere between the mechanics problem sets and the ITA rankings tables, Advik Mareedu has figured out how to just live. His preferred spot to decompress is the team room at the Biszantz Family Tennis Center, a place that doubles as social hub, movie venue, and the kind of low-stakes sanctuary that only exists when the people around you are genuinely your friends.

When the day finally winds down, that room becomes something closer to a living room, movies on, food spread out, the same group of people who just pushed each other through a hard practice now kicking back together. It is the kind of place that does not exist on a campus map but ends up being where a lot of a college career actually happens. For Mareedu, that rhythm of shared downtime is as much a part of his Claremont experience as anything that happens on the court or in the classroom.

Food is woven into it. The Hoch is his dining hall of choice, reliably for the birria tacos and pizza on Fridays, and whenever the ube ice cream makes an appearance, that too. Getting food with friends is one of his go-to ways to reset when academics and tennis both bear down at once. Simple, social, restorative.

Away from campus, he is a lifelong Lakers fan, the kind of devotion that runs deep enough that he was there in person for Kobe Bryant's final game, a memory he carries quietly. Basketball is a regular unwind: watching games, following the season, letting sport be something he consumes rather than performs. And when the question every tennis player eventually gets asked comes up - dream doubles partner, anyone in history - he does not hesitate. Roger Federer. The greatest of all time, and the only real answer.

Looking Ahead
As Mareedu moves toward graduation, what he takes with him is less a trophy case than a way of operating in the world.

"It's taught me a lot of lessons like keeping things in perspective, discipline, and resilience. Being in that environment has really shown me how important it is to stay consistent and trust the process, even when things get tough."

He will keep playing, not necessarily competitively, but in the way that matters more: with his teammates and friends who are getting more into the sport, on courts where nobody is tracking rankings. For someone who arrived at Harvey Mudd with an elite national ranking and leaves as a national champion, the plan after graduation is simply to play tennis with the people he loves.

His advice to prospective student-athletes speaks to all three things he has modeled for four years: "Enjoy your time on the team because it goes by really fast. It's a special experience where you get to spend every day with your friends and be surrounded by supportive people who genuinely want to see you do well." Study hard, compete hard, look after each other. Mareedu has not just said it, he has lived it.

And if he could go back and tell his first-year self anything?

"Just enjoy it because it goes by really fast. Don't get too caught up in everything day to day and make sure to appreciate the time with your teammates and friends, since it really flies by."