The No. 12 Spartans men’s tennis team continued their winning streak this weekend with three straight victories in two days. None of the games were against other nationally ranked opponents, but they were strong outings nonetheless. Case Western Reserve University hosted two of the three games, helping to improve their already impressive home record for the season.

The first match was at home against Wheaton College. The match had its fair share of one-sided match-ups as well as its closer contests, making for an interesting struggle between the two schools.

In doubles competition, CWRU saw two of its duos win easily, while the other fell in a close 8-5 match. For second-year student David Zakhodin and fourth-year students James Fojtasek and Phillip Gruber, the doubles competition was the beginning of three straight team doubles match victories.

After splitting the doubles competition 2-1, the Spartans went on to win five of six matches in the singles competition. Despite winning in his doubles match, Fojtasek lost to Wheaton’s Justin Ancona in two successive sets 6-3, but his team still walked away with the win.

Later that same day, the Spartans traveled to Oberlin, Ohio to play against the College of Wooster on neutral courts. CWRU swept the doubles matches, with Zakhodin and first-year student Anthony Kanam teaming up and winning their match with a solid 8-1 showing.

Then, in singles matches, the Spartans were able to again dominate and win five of six. First-year student Rajeev Laungani won his match with two easy sweeps of 6-0 sets against his opponent, leading his team to another victory.

Rounding the weekend out, the Spartans again returned to their own Carlton Courts to host Oberlin College. Fojtasek and Gruber won their doubles match 8-3, and Zakhodin and Kanam won theirs 8-2. However, second-year student John Benedetto and fourth-year student Fred Daum lost their doubles match after a hard-fought 8-6 set, and the score at the end of doubles competition was split 2-1 in the favor of the Spartans.

Just like in the past two matches, CWRU slammed on their gas pedal in the singles matches. However, unlike in the previous two meets, the Spartans won only four of six of the matches, rather than five.
Despite the small slip, they still took their 17th win of the year to improve to 17-4 on the season. The team’s record is one win more than where they were this time last year, and the team hopes to keep improving as they look ahead to next weekend’s two home matches against the University of Rochester and Ohio Wesleyan University. The two matchups represent the last tune-up for the Spartans before the University Athletic Association Championship tournament from April 21-23 in Altamonte Springs, Florida.