FOREST, Va. – Andres Mercedes (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic) was selected as the Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC)/Virginia Farm Bureau Scholar-Athlete of the Year for the Guilford College men's tennis program, while also being picked to the All-ODAC Second Team in the top flight of doubles alongside
Emmanuel Oye (Clayton, N.C.) in the league's postseason awards as announced by the conference offices on Wednesday afternoon.
Mercedes finishes his Quakers career with his second major honor from the conference after being named the ODAC Rookie of the Year as a freshman and concluding a tenure in the cardinal and grey that ranks as one of the very best in program history. While missed time likely prevented his fourth-straight sweep of all-conference recognition in both singles and doubles, his All-ODAC Second Team nod makes him just the second Quaker to be named all-conference in four separate years. That distinction places him alongside Turner Votipka '15 as the lone-two men to do so since the program joined the league. Additionally, by garnering ODAC/Va. Farm Bureau Scholar-Athlete of the Year honors, he secures the program's sixth-ever major award as distributed by the league as just the second player to claim that specific honor for academic and athletic superiority, joining Tate Godwin '18 who received the accolade in 2018.
A lock atop the Guilford lineup, playing out of the top flight of both singles and doubles pretty much from the second he stepped on campus, Mercedes finishes ranked among the winningest men's tennis players in the program's 61-year history. He ranks fourth in career singles wins, with 48, tied for sixth in doubles victories, with 43, and fifth in overall wins with 91, in addition to top-five program ranks in both singles and overall win rate, and a top-ten rank in doubles winning percentage. This season, he was limited a little, but still managed to put together an 11-3 record in the top flight highlighted by his second-straight victory in the top flight at the Methodist Men's Fall Invite. In doubles he added a 9-5 record as well for an overall season mark of 20-8 including 8-1 in league action in his second year leading GC on the court as team captain.
Off the clay, Mercedes is a two-year residential advisor and a peer tutor on campus while also working some pretty illustrious internships, including in sales at Investco last summer. This award is just the latest in his laundry list of accolades for his performance in the classroom in addition to in competition across various levels. He was the 2024 Jack Jensen Ideal Student-Athlete Award recipient in addition to getting picked as just the fifth-ever two-time recipient of the Nereus C. English Athletic Leadership Award. At the league level he was picked to the All-Academic ODAC squad in each prior season while advancing even higher, he was picked as an ITA Division-III Men's Scholar Athlete last spring. Just yesterday Mercedes was named to his second-straight College Sports Communicators (CSC) Academic All-District team and was selected to the national ballot for a chance at receiving Academic All-America distinction for the second-consecutive year. Mercedes completed his Business Administration degree this spring with a cumulative GPA of 3.98.
Oye becomes the third separate partner to join Mercedes as an All-ODAC Second Team honoree in doubles, and it was well-earned for the breakout senior duo. Together, they went 9-5 this spring including 9-3 in duals play, but they were exceptional against conference competition. The pair finished a flawless 5-0 in doubles play this spring when facing ODAC foes with two of those wins being 6-0 sweeps and another being a 6-1 "gentleman's sweep." Among their victories was an upset of Randolph's three-time All-ODAC, and back-to-back All-ODAC First Team tandem of Jacob Martin and Andreas Mulner. They were picked as the ODAC Doubles Team of the Week on one occasion this season.
As a team, GC had a down year, finishing 2-15 overall and 2-7 in ODAC play.
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