The top-ranked Case Western Reserve University men's tennis team began its quest for a third-straight ITA Indoor National Championship with a win over a familiar conference foe on Friday morning, defeating the eighth-ranked and eighth-seeded University of Chicago 4-3 at the Top Seed Tennis Tennis Club in Nicholasville, Kentucky.

The Spartans, who improved to 5-0 with the win, will now face WashU in the semifinals in a rematch of the championship contest from both last year's ITA Championship and the University Athletic Association Championship, each of which CWRU won by a 5-1 score. The Bears, who defeated Sewanee in the quarterfinals to improve to 2-1, entered the tournament as the fourth-seeded team and are ranked ninth in Division III.

With this weekend's matches being played under Division I scoring rules, CWRU jumped out to a 1-0 lead with a sweep of the three doubles contests. Senior Sahil Dayal and sophomore Anmay Devaraj were dominant at no. 1 doubles, winning 6-0 over Derek Hsieh and Robert Zhang, while graduate student Michael Sutanto and junior Ansh Shah clinched the doubles points for the Spartans with a 6-2 win at no. 3 doubles over Arjun Asokumar and Jack Wong. Senior Vishwa Aduru and graduate student Diego Maza wrapped up the sweep with a 6-3 victory over Andrei Leonov and Pat Otero at no. 2 doubles.

The Division I scoring had the potential to impact the outcome of the match with the Spartans needing to claim three of the six singles matches to secure a victory rather than two. Chicago quickly evened the score at 1-1 with a victory from Hsieh in second singles over Sutanto, 6-3, 6-2. CWRU regained the lead with a win at fourth singles from junior Casey Hishinuma, who bested Otero 7-6 (3), 6-3, and pulled within a point of clinching with a 6-2, 6-3 win from Maza over Ajer Sher at fifth singles.

Devaraj would provide the match-clinching victory at sixth singles shortly thereafter, claiming a 6-3, 6-3 win over Matthew Liew to secure the team win and lift the Spartans into the semifinals.

After the contest was already decided, Aduru suffered a 7-6 (1), 6-0 loss to Emil Grantcharov at no. 1 singles and Shah dropped a three-set match to Asokumar, falling 6-2, 6-7 (7), 10-5.

The loss was the first of the season for the Maroons, who fell to 6-1 following the setback.

CWRU and WashU will face off in the semifinals on Saturday at 2:00 p.m. Fans can follow the action with live scoring at https://ioncourt.com/leagues/2024-ita-diii-national-mens-team-indoor-championship and video at https://www.youtube.com/@WeAreCollegeTennis/streams.