Case Western Reserve University junior Vishwa Aduru battled to a come-from-behind win to provide the clinching victory and give the second-ranked Spartans a 6-3 win over fifth-ranked Claremont-Mudd-Scripps on Saturday morning in the semifinals of the ITA Indoor National Championship at the Swanson Tennis Center in St. Peter, Minnesota.
The win puts the second-seeded Spartans in a position to defend last year's ITA Indoor Title when they play in the championship match tomorrow morning. CWRU will face the winner between top-ranked and seeded Chicago or fourth-seeded and seventh-ranked WashU in Sunday's championship at 12:30 PM ET. The Maroons and Bears are set to begin play in their semifinal contest on Saturday at 10:00 a.m. ET.
CWRU has now won nine-straight matches and improved to 9-0 against Division III competition and 9-2 overall this season. The Stags fell to 5-1 following the loss.
CWRU was forced to dig itself out of an early deficit on Saturday. The Spartans' lone doubles win came from senior James Hopper and Aduru, who defeated Christian Settles and Advik Mareedu 8-5 at no. 1 doubles. The win tied the match at 1-1 after the Stags got on the board first with an 8-4 win from Ian Freer and Matthew Robinson over junior Sahil Dayal and senior Chris Provenzano at second doubles. Claremont-Mudd-Scripps would take the lead in the match after doubles play with an 8-6 win from Nathan Arimilli and Christopher Li over seniors Diego Maza and Michael Sutanto in the third match.
Hopper evened the score for CWRU with a win over Mareedu, the current top-ranked singles player in Division III, 6-1, 6-0 at no. 1 singles, and shortly thereafter, sophomore Ansh Shah gave the Spartans their first lead of the match with a 6-3, 6-2 win against Michael Hao at fourth singles. The teams continued to go back and forth, with Warren Pham topping sophomore Casey Hishinuma at six singles, 6-3, 6-4, and sophomore Ajay Mahenthiran defeating Freer 6-4, 6-2 at fifth singles, giving the Spartans a 4-3 lead in the match and putting them a win away from clinching.
The match would come down to the final two singles contests, with Aduru facing Li in the second singles match, and Sutanto taking on Robinson at third singles. Each match would go into a third set with Aduru dropping his first set 6-2 before coming back in the second with a 7-5 win to even the score, and Sutanto winning the first set 6-2 before suffering a 7-6 setback in the second. Aduru would ultimately pull out the match-clinching win, defeating Li 6-3 in the third set. A few minutes later, Sutanto capped off the win with a 7-6 victory in the third set against Robinson.
The Spartans will now turn their attention toward Sunday's championship match, as the team will look to join Gustavus Adolphus and Emory as the only programs to repeat as champions in back-to-back years at the ITA Indoor National Championship. Fans can follow the match via live results at https://ioncourt.com/leagues/ita-diii-national-mens-team-indoor-championship and video at https://www.youtube.com/@GustavusAthletics/streams.
