The sixth-ranked Case Western Reserve University men's tennis team won the University Athletic Association Championship for the second time in program history, defeating the fourth-ranked University of Chicago 4-1 to claim the conference title on Sunday morning at Sanlando Park in Altamonte Springs, Florida.

The title is the second in the last three years for the Spartans, who also won the UAA Championship in 2023. By virtue of winning the conference title, CWRU will receive the UAA's automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Championship in May.

CWRU, which was the second seed in the tournament, has now won four straight matches and improved to 25-5 overall this season, while the top-seeded Maroons fell to 21-3 with the loss. The Spartans ended the Maroons' eight-match winning streak with the victory.

Despite the three-match margin in the final team score, CWRU and Chicago battled through a series of close matches throughout the morning, beginning with doubles play where it took seven games to win each of the three matches. Chicago won the first match of the day to be decided, as third-ranked Andrei Leonov and Pat Otero bested ninth-ranked junior Anmay Devaraj and senior Casey Hishinuma 7-5. In the third doubles match, Chicago's Markus Ekstrand and Robert Zhang had two chances to score the doubles point for the Maroons, serving ahead 5-4 and 6-5, but the Spartans' duo of junior Rohan Bhat and senior Ajay Mahenthiran held them off each time and eventually pulled out a 6-1 tiebreaker to win the match.

The doubles point would come down to the second match, where CWRU first-years Jon Totorica and Leon Chen led 4-1 early, but Chicago's Alexander Ekstrand and Derek Hsieh battled back to even the score at 4-4. The two duos continued to trade games to force a tiebreaker, where Totorica and Chen never trailed after jumping out to a 3-0 lead, before holding on for a 6-3 win and giving the Spartans an early 1-0 advantage.

Chicago evened the score with a win at sixth singles from Otero, who bested 49th-ranked sophomore Santiago Salazar Garza 6-1, 6-2. Mahenthiran, ranked 17th, responded at first singles with a big 6-3, 6-4 win over fifth-ranked Alexander Ekstrand to give CWRU the lead back. Devaraj followed with a 7-5, 6-4 win over Hsieh in the third singles match to give the Spartans a 3-1 lead and put the team a victory away from the conference title.

Hishinuma delivered the clincher for the Spartans in the fifth singles match over Matthew Liew. After cruising to a 6-2 win in the first set, Hishinuma found himself down 5-2 in the second set but rallied off three set games to knot the score at 5-5. Liew broke up Hishinuma's momentum with a win to go ahead 6-5, but Hishinuma again evened the score to force the tiebreaker. The two players remained within a point of each other for most of the tiebreaker before Hishinuma won two points in a row after being tied 4-4 to set up a match point. After Liew won the next point, Hishinuma bested him on the next point to win the tiebreaker 7-5 and start the celebration for the Spartans.

When play was stopped, 37th-ranked sophomore George Kosseifi led 12th-ranked Emil Grantcharov in the third set, 3-6, 6-1, 3-0, and junior Matthew Plunkett held a one-set lead of Ajer Sher, 7-5, 3-4.

The Spartans will now await the announcement of the field for the 2025 NCAA Division III Men's Tennis Championship. The full bracket and host sites for the first three rounds of the tournament will be revealed on ncaa.org by noon on Monday, May 5.

Spartan Notes

• Sunday's win was the first meeting between the two teams since CWRU lost to Chicago 5-3 at last year's UAA Championship match.

• This was the third time in the last four years that CWRU and Chicago have played for the UAA Championship.

• The Spartans are now 2-2 all-time in UAA Championship matches.

• CWRU improved to 13-3 against nationally-ranked Division III teams this season. Chicago was the highest-ranked opponent the Spartans have defeated this year. CWRU stands at 25-3 against Division III opposition this season with all three losses coming against teams currently ranked in the top-two nationally.

• The Spartans have now won 18 of their last 19 matches.

• Hishinuma's singles victory was the 89th of his career, putting him one shy of former Spartan Anthony Kanam (2016-22) for the second-most singles wins in program history. Mahenthiran is three singles wins behind Hishinuma with 86 for his career.