The quest for the first team NCAA Championship in the history of Case Western Reserve University athletics will continue for the second-ranked men's tennis team, after the Spartans defeated sixth-ranked Williams College 5-0 on Monday morning at the USTA National Campus in Orlando, Florida.

With Monday's win, the Spartans earned a berth in the NCAA Division III Semifinals for the second-straight season. CWRU will face fourth-ranked Middlebury College, which defeated Washington University (Mo.) 5-2 in their quarterfinal matchup on Monday.

CWRU improved to 24-4 on the year following the win, while Williams' season came to an end with an overall record of 15-4.

Junior James Hopper and graduate student Jonathan Powell, ranked third in the Central Region, got the Spartans on the board to start the match with a dominant performance at no. 1 doubles, besting Chase Cohen and Matthew Kandel, the Northeast Region's second-ranked duo, 8-3.

The remaining two doubles matches were each closer. At no. 3 doubles, senior Chaitanya Aduru and junior Michael Sutanto were able to pull out an 8-6 victory against Peter Frelinghuysen and Jack Truwit to give the Spartans a 2-0 advantage. Down 7-6 and facing match point at second doubles, sophomores Vishwa Aduru and Sahil Dayal (ranked 12^th in the Central Region) were able to break serve and force a tiebreaker against Karan Amin and Shawn Berdia. After falling behind 3-1 in the tiebreaker set, the Spartans' duo was able to rally for five of the next six points, going ahead 6-4. Williams answered with back-to-back points to even the score at 6-6, but Aduru and Dayal were able to tally back-to-back points of their own and clinch the match 8-7 (6), giving the Spartans a 3-0 lead heading into singles play.

First-year Ansh Shah, ranked 12^th in the Central Region, added a point to the CWRU total, winning 6-3, 6-0 over Amin to put the Spartans a victory away from clinching the match. The win was Shah's 28^th singles victory of the year, tying him for the third-most ever by a CWRU player, and moving him two away from CJ Krimbill's single-season record.

Powell would provide the clincher at no. 6 singles for the Spartans, picking up a 7-5, 6-4 win against Kirun Cheung to move CWRU onto the semifinals.

When play was stopped, Chaitanya Aduru was up a set on the fifth singles court, leading Michael Medvedev 6-4, 4-4. CWRU also led in the third set on both the first and second singles courts, with Hopper, ranked first in the Central Region, holding a 5-7, 6-2, 4-3 lead over Cohen, the Northeast's third-ranked player, and Vishwa Aduru (ranked 13^th in the Central) up 3-6, 6-4, 3-1 against Kandel. Sutanto, ranked 21^st in the Central, fell 7-6 (4) in a first-set tiebreaker to Berdia, but led 4-2 in the second set at fourth singles.

By virtue of advancing to the semifinals, the Spartans have already recorded the second-best finish by any team in CWRU Athletics history, behind only the squad's runner-up finish last season.

Tuesday's semifinal match will be just the second meeting all-time between the Spartans and the Panthers. The two teams previously faced off in the 2014 NCAA Division III Quarterfinals, with CWRU suffering a 5-1 setback. The Panthers stand at 21-2 overall on the year following their quarterfinal win over Washington on Monday.

Fans can follow the action on Tuesday with live results at https://scores.tennisticker.de/usa/ustanc/conf/lp.html?lid=88 and live video at https://www.ustanationalcampus.com/en/home/watch.html.