The third-ranked Case Western Reserve University men's tennis team suffered a 5-3 to the second-ranked University of Chicago in the University Athletic Association Championship Match on Saturday morning at Sanlando Park in Altamonte Springs, Florida.
The Spartans, who entered the tournament as the second-seeded team and were looking to defend their first-ever UAA title won last year, fell to 25-5 for the season with the loss, as the team saw its season-long 12-match winning streak come to an end. Chicago improved to 20-1 with the victory.
The Spartans fell behind early when Jack Wong and Arjun Asokumar bested senior Daniel French and graduate student Michael Sutanto 8-3 at no. 3 doubles, but CWRU quickly responded with an 8-3 win from graduate student Diego Maza and senior Vishwa Aduru (ranked second in Division III) at no. 1 doubles over Pat Otero and Andrei Leonov (ranked eighth nationally). An 8-5 victory from senior Sahil Dayal and sophomore Anmay Devaraj over Derek Hsieh and Robert Zhang (ranked 23rd in DIII) at no. 2 doubles put the Spartans in front 2-1 heading into singles play.
Maza put CWRU ahead 3-1 with a 6-2, 6-1 win in the sixth singles match over Otero. Chicago got a point back at second singles, where Aduru (ranked 50th in DIII) fell to Hsieh (ranked 19th) 6-0, 7-6 (7), and tied the match at 3-3 with a 6-2, 6-4 win from Asokumar over Sutanto (ranked 32nd) at third singles.
The attention then shifted to the remaining three singles courts, where the winner of two of the matches would decide the conference champion. CWRU won the first set on two of the three courts, with junior Ajay Mahenthiran, ranked eighth in DIII, winning the opening stanza 6-4 over Emil Grantcharov, ranked fifth, at first singles and junior Ansh Shah taking a lead with a 7-6 (5) win in the first set against Ajer Sher at fourth singles, while junior Casey Hishinuma, ranked 37th, dropped the opening set to Kane Kelly 7-5. After Mahenthiran dropped his second set 6-1 to move to a deciding third set, Hishinuma battled tough in his second set, overcoming a 4-0 deficit to eventually lead 5-4 and 6-5, but eventually succumbed to Kelly 7-5 in a tiebreaker. Shortly thereafter, Mahenthiran dropped his third set 6-0 to clinch the title for the Maroons.
When play was stopped due to decision, Shah and Sher were even 5-5 in the second set.
CWRU will now await the announcement of the field for the 2024 NCAA Division III Championship, which will be posted to ncaa.org by noon on Monday, May 6. Despite missing out on the UAA's automatic bid, the Spartans are likely to receive an at-large bid to the tournament based on their play during the campaign, which would mark the team's fourth-consecutive NCAA Championship appearance.
