The Case Western Reserve University men's tennis team, ranked first in Division III, opened play at the University Athletic Association Championship on Thursday morning in Altamonte Springs, Florida with a 5-0 win against New York University.
The Spartans, who are also the top-seeded team in the eight squad draw, improved to 20-3 overall on the season and will advance to the semifinals on Friday to take on Emory in a rematch of the 2021 NCAA Division III Championship match. The fourth-seeded Eagles bested fifth-seeded Carnegie Mellon 5-1 on Thursday morning.
NYU fell to 1-9 on the campaign following the loss.
The pairing of senior Chaitanya Aduru and graduate student Anthony Kanam notched the first win of the day for the Spartans, defeating Shrey Arora and Rumaish Khastgir 8-2 at third doubles. Junior James Hopper and graduate student Jonathan Powell extended the Spartans' lead to 2-0 with an 8-6 win against Alex Yang and Zachary Freier at no. 1 doubles, and junior Michael Sutanto and sophomore Vishwa Aduru put CWRU in front by three with an 8-5 win at second doubles over Joseph He and Andy Watterson.
At third singles, Chaitanya Aduru bested He 6-1, 6-2, and Sutanto earned a 6-1, 6-1 win at second singles over Freier to clinch the win, and write the Spartans' ticket to the semifinals on Friday.
At the time the match ended, Vishwa Aduru led Yang 6-4, 2-1 at no. 1 singles, Powell was ahead 7-5, 4-1 against Max O'Malley at no. 4 singles, Kanam led Watterson 6-3, 5-1 at no. 5 singles, and senior Max Vicario led Khastgir 7-5, 2-1 at no. 6 singles.
With Thursday's win, the Spartans assured themselves their first top-four finish at the UAA Championships since the 2014 campaign, and the seventh overall in program history. A win against Emory on Friday would assure CWRU its best-ever UAA finish.
CWRU's semifinal match against Emory is scheduled to begin at 12:30 p.m. in Altamonte Springs on Friday. Live results for the match will be available at http://apps.studentaffairs.cmu.edu/athletics/scoring/wsoccer/xlive.htm.
