The Case Western Reserve University men's tennis team, ranked fourth in Division III, dropped a pair of matches on Tuesday afternoon, falling 7-0 to Division I UC Irvine and 4-3 to Westcliff University (ranked fifth in the NAIA) in Irvine, California.

The two losses dropped the Spartans to 10-3 overall for the 2024 campaign.

The Spartans split the squad between the two matches and played both teams simultaneously. CWRU struck the first blow against Westcliff with a 6-3 win from sophomores Matthew Plunkett and Justin Prochnow at third doubles against Felix Veyhle and Adrien Gagniere. However, the Warriors secured the doubles point with wins in the other two contests, as Karlo Krolo and Borna Devald bested sophomore Rohan Bhat and first-year George Kosseifi 6-3 at no. 1 doubles and Angel Guerrero and Maxence Kupfert claimed a 6-4 win against first-years Trey Lambright and Derek Shiffer at no. 2 doubles.

Westcliff added to its lead with wins from Kupfert at second singles, 6-0, 6-4 over Kosseifi, and Gagniere at fourth singles, 6-3, 6-2 over Shiffer. Plunkett answered back with a 6-3, 6-3 win at no. 1 singles over Veyhle to trim the lead to 3-1, but Devald provided the clincher for the Warriors with a 6-1, 6-4 victory over Bhat at third singles.

CWRU won a pair of matches after the match was decided as first-year Santiago Salazar Garza defeated Victor Chaix 6-1, 4-6, 10-6 at fifth singles and junior Ben Martin bested Victor Castro 6-7 (6), 6-2, 10-2 at sixth singles.

Westcliff improved to 6-6 for the season following the win.

The Spartans struggled against the higher-division opponent in the late match, getting swept in doubles play by UC Irvine. Senior Vishwa Aduru and graduate student Diego Maza fell to Noah Zamora and Rahul Dhokia 7-5 at no. 1 doubles, senior Sahil Dayal and sophomore Anmay Devaraj lost 6-4 to Andy Nguyen and Hiroki Sakagawa at no. 2 doubles, and seniors Daniel French and Yuvraj Narang dropped a 6-3 decision to Matthew Sah and Brandon Park at no. 3 doubles.

CWRU went on to drop each of the six singles matches as well. Graduate student Michael Sutanto suffered a 6-2, 6-3 setback to Sakagawa in the first singles match, while junior Ajay Mahenthiran fell 6-4, 6-0 to Zamora at second singles. In the third singles contest, junior Ansh Shah lost to Rithvik Krishna 7-5, 7-5 and junior Casey Hishinuma dropped a 6-1, 6-3 match to Lawee Sherif at fourth singles. Rounding out the contest, Maza lost to Dhokia 6-0, 6-0 at fifth singles and Devaraj lost to Ali Amiri 6-2, 6-4 at sixth singles.

UC Irvine improved to 8-4 with the win.

CWRU will look to bounce back on Wednesday against a pair of nationally-ranked Division III opponents, facing 26th-ranked Pomona-Pitzer at 12:30 p.m. ET in Claremont, California, and 37th-ranked Chapman University at 5:30 p.m. ET in Orange, California.