The fourth-ranked Case Western Reserve University men's tennis team claimed a pair of wins on 'Senior Day' on Friday, defeating Kalamazoo College 9-0 in the early match before claiming a big 7-2 win against fifth-ranked Denison University in the second match.

The Spartans have now won nine straight matches to improve to 22-4 for the season.

CWRU began the day with its fourth straight sweep during its win over Kalamazoo. Graduate students Diego Maza and Michael Sutanto bested Lucas Preston and Seth Keana 8-0 at third doubles and seniors Daniel French and Yuvraj Narang secured an 8-2 victory against Adnan Alousi and Julian Bilbao at second doubles. Seniors Vishwa Aduru and Sahil Dayal put CWRU ahead 3-0 with an 8-6 first doubles triumph over Gabe Vidinas and Alex Fleming.

First-year Santiago Salazar Garcia pushed the Spartans' lead to 4-0 with a 6-2, 6-0 win against Alousi at second singles and sophomore Rohan Bhat provided the clincher for CWRU with a 6-0, 6-1 win over Preston at fifth singles. Adding to Friday's win over the Hornets were junior Ben Martin with a 6-1, 6-2 win over Bilbao at fourth singles, first-year Derek Shiffer with a 6-3, 6-3 win against Keana at sixth singles, first-year George Kosseifi with a 6-1, 6-3 win against Fleming at third singles, and sophomore Matthew Plunkett with a 6-3, 7-5 win against Gabe Vidinas at first singles.

Kalamazoo dropped to 5-9 with the loss.

CWRU won two of the three doubles matches against Denison to jump out to the early lead in the team's second match of the day. The Big Red were the first on the scoreboard with an 8-2 win at third doubles from Zachary Portnoy and Andy Mackler over Narang and French. However, CWRU evened the score with an 8-3 win from Aduru and Maza against Colin Gramley and Ethan Green at no. 1 doubles and then grabbed a 2-1 lead heading into singles play with an 8-4 victory by Dayal and sophomore Anmay Devaraj at no. 2 doubles over Kael Shah and Jacob Patterson.

Sutanto helped the Spartans take a 3-1 lead with a straight-set win at third singles, besting Green 6-2, 6-0. At fifth singles, Maza added a 7-5, 6-3 win against Portnoy to put the Spartans within a match of clinching. After Patterson topped Aduru 7-5, 6-3 at second singles, junior Casey Hishinuma provided the clincher with a 7-5, 6-4 win against Mackler in the fourth singles match.

After the contest was decided both junior Ajay Mahenthiran and Devaraj added three-set wins. Mahenthiran was triumphant 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 over Shah at no. 1 singles, while Devaraj claimed a 3-6, 6-4, 6-2 victory over Gramley at no. 6 singles.

Denison, which saw its eight-match winning streak end with the loss, dropped to 13-4 for the season.

Friday also marked Senior Day for the Spartans as the team recognized its four senior players - Aduru, Dayal, French, and Narang. Together, the four have been part of a squad that has reached the NCAA Division III Championship match in each of the last three years and won the NCAA Team Championship in CWRU Athletics history last year.

The Spartans will conclude their 2024 regular season tomorrow when the team travels to Pittsburgh for a noon match against 25th-ranked Carnegie Mellon University.