This past weekend, Case Western Reserve University’s No. 4-ranked men’s tennis team played against three different schools including No. 5-ranked Denison University and No. 25-ranked Carnegie Mellon University to wrap up their regular season.
The Spartans began with a 9 a.m. game against Kalamazoo College where they swept the Hornets, 9-0 for their fourth consecutive sweep.
Graduate students Diego Maza and Michael Sutanto finished first beating the Kalamazoo pair 8-0 in third doubles. Their win was followed by fourth-years Daniel French and Yuvraj Narang taking a 8-2 victory in second doubles. The doubles matches finished with fourth-year first doubles pair Vishwa Aduru and Sahil Dayal bringing the CWRU lead to 3-0 with an 8-6 win.
After the doubles matches, first-year Santiago Salazar Garcia and second-year Rohan Bhat’s 6-2, 6-0 and 6-0, 6-1 wins in the second and fifth singles, respectively, solidified the team’s win against Kalamazoo. The remaining singles matches played by third-year Ben Martin, first-year Derek Shiffer, first-year George Kosseifi and second-year Matthew Plunkett contributed to the Spartans’ sweep of Kalamazoo.
After a successful morning, the team went on into their Denison matches with high hopes to crush their regional rival.
Despite Denison’s early lead from third doubles, the Spartans pulled ahead with the remaining doubles matches. Aduru and Maza won 8-3 at first doubles and Dayal and second-year Anmay Devaraj at 8-4 at second doubles. The Spartans went into singles play 2-1.
Sutanto won the first singles match 6-2, 6-0 at third singles, followed by Maza adding a 7-5, 6-3 win at fifth singles. After Denison took second singles, the Spartans clinched the victory with a 7-5, 6-4 win by third-year Casey Hishinuma in fourth singles. After the contest was decided, third-year Ajay Mahenthiran and Devaraj both added three-set wins with Mahenthiran taking first singles 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 and Devaraj taking sixth singles 3-6, 6-4, 6-2. The Spartans defeated Denison 7-2.
Second-year Jackson Schuetzle commented that this was the team’s most rewarding win this past weekend, “I think our Denison match was definitely a huge statement. There were a lot of matches that were super close and watching the entire time, it literally was like a war on the court.”
Besides celebrating putting an end to Denison’s eight-match win streak, the Spartans also recognized four fourth-year players Aduru, Dayal, French and Narang as part of Friday’s Senior Day for the team.
All four players were part of the team as they went to NCAA Division III Championships the past three years and were part of CWRU’s historic NCAA Team Championship win last year.
Dayal shared his thoughts on the remainder of the season. “It’s a tough reality that this is my last season and weeks of college tennis, and I am trying to do everything I can to cherish these final moments.” Dayal continues, “We are all competing our hardest and leaving everything out on the court. The team has high goals for the remainder of the season, but we are taking each match one by one. We are all excited for this post season and can’t wait to see what this year’s team can accomplish.”
The following day, the Spartans traveled to Pittsburgh to face off against Carnegie Mellon. The afternoon started strong with Aduru and Maza winning first doubles 8-1. However, the next two matches were closer with Carnegie Mellon winning the third doubles to tie the score 1-1, but the second doubles pair Dayal and Devaraj won the tiebreaker 8-7 (1) putting CWRU ahead.
In the singles play, Carnegie Mellon once again tied the score with a win in first singles. However, the Spartans were able to clinch the victory from three straight wins made by Aduru, Hishinuma and Sutanto with 7-5, 6-1 at second singles, 1-6, 6-2, 6-2 fifth singles and 7-6 (5), 6-2 third singles, respectively. After the victory was secured, Maza also contributed to CWRU’s final score of 6-3 against the Tartans with a 6-2, 7-6 (8) win at sixth singles.
With these three wins, the men’s tennis team have improved 23-4 and extended their win-streak to 10.
“I think going into the conference championships on Wednesday, we’re well equipped with the skills we’ve been working on since a couple of losses we took early in the fall, but I think we found our identity and we’re extremely excited to go into this postseason,” Devaraj commented.
The Spartans began the UAA Championship Tournament on April 25 and will compete through the rest of the weekend in Altamonte Springs, Florida. They will get a couple weeks off before competing in the first rounds of the 2024 NCAA DIII Championships from May 10-12.