Case Western Reserve University sophomore Ansh Shah won two more singles matches on Saturday to reach the semifinals of the singles draw at the ITA Fall Central Regional Championships in St. Louis, Missouri, while the Spartans doubles pairing of senior James Hopper and junior Vishwa Aduru also claimed two victories to move to the semifinals of the doubles draw.
Hopper and Aduru, the top-seeded pairing in the draw, earned a spot in the quarterfinals with 8-3 wins over Daniel Tulchinskiy and Oleksyi Vyshyvanyuk of Lake Forest in the round of 16 and against Scott Yamamoto and Gaurav Singh of Washington University in the quarterfinals. Hopper is now just two wins away from notching his third-straight ITA Fall Regional Doubles Championship, after winning the title as a first-year with Matthew Chen in 2019 and as a junior last year with Jonathan Powell (the ITA Regionals were canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic).
Standing in Hopper and Aduru's path will be the third-seeded pairing of Sachin Das and Andrei Leonov of Chicago in the semifinals, which will be played out at 8:00 a.m. CT on Sunday. The winner will advance to the championship match against either second-seeded Abhi Ramireddy and Phuc Huynh of Washington or fourth-seeded Jack Bulger and Marc-Lennart Harms of Denison at 9:30 a.m. CT on Sunday.
In other round of 16 doubles action on Saturday for the Spartans, junior Michael Sutanto and sophomore Ajay Mahenthiran fell to Yamamoto and Singh 8-6, and seventh-seeded Shah and sophomore Casey Hishinuma suffered an 8-6 loss to ninth-seeded Hudson Beaudoin and John Walentowicz of Chicago 8-6.
Meanwhile, in the singles draw, Shah, seeded fifth, defeated 16th seed Thomas Kallarakal 6-3, 6-1 in the round of 16, before claiming a win over Hopper, the top seed in the draw, 7-5, 6-1 in the quarterfinals. Shah will now face Ramireddy, the fourth-seeded player in the draw, in the semifinals on Sunday at 12:00 p.m. CT, with the winner taking on either seventh-seed Derek Hsieh of Chicago or 14th-seeded Emil Grantcharov of Chicago for the championship at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday.
In other main draw singles matches on Saturday, Hopper defeated 11th-seeded Luis Platas of Kenyon in the round of 16, 6-4, 7-5, while Aduru, seeded third, topped 10th-seeded Anton Hedlund of Allegheny 6-1, 6-1 in the round of 16, before falling in three sets to Hsieh in the quarterfinals, 2-6, 6-4, 6-1.
Play at the ITA Regionals will conclude tomorrow with the semifinals and finals of the singles and doubles draws. To follow results as they come in, go to https://colleges.wearecollegetennis.com/Competitions/WashingtonUniversityInSaintLouisM/Tournaments/Overview/c12bc2f6-384c-425f-9a01-1953e589c739.
The Spartans also sent a squad to the Big Red Invitational at Denison University on Saturday, with the team combining to go 15-5 in singles matches and 4-1 in doubles play. First-year Anmay Devraj, sophomore Pranav Ikkurthy, sophomore Ben Martin, senior Diego Maza, first-year Justin Prochnow, and first-year Jackson Schueltze each went 2-0 in singles play at the tournament.
