The fourth-ranked Case Western Reserve University men's tennis team earned a spot in the NCAA Division III Semifinals for the fourth time in program history on Monday night with a 4-2 win over the fifth-ranked University of Chicago in the quarterfinals at the Biszantz Family Tennis Center in Claremont, California.

The Spartans, who improved to 28-5, will now advance to the semifinals of the NCAA Championship to face top-ranked Claremont-Mudd-Scripps on Tuesday, May 20, at 8:00 p.m. ET in Claremont. The contest will be a rematch of the semifinal of the 2025 ITA Indoor National Championship match, which the Stags won 5-2.

The Spartans took two of the three doubles matches to head into singles play with a 1-0 advantage over the Maroons. Chicago won the first doubles match as the top-ranked pairing of Andrei Leonov and Pat Otero bested 13th-ranked senior Casey Hishinuma and junior Anmay Devaraj 6-3, but first-years Jon Totorica and Leon Chen bested 17th-ranked Emil Grantcharov and Derek Hsieh 6-3 in the second doubles match, shifting the attention to a decision third doubles contest between senior Ajay Mahenthiran and Rohan Bhat of CWRU and Michael Choi and Robert Zhang of Chicago.

Chicago led early in the third doubles contest, but the Spartans battled back, taking a 5-3 lead. The Maroons responded, breaking CWRU's serve and winning the next set to even the score at 5-5, but the Spartans' pair bounced back again, winning the next set, and on match point, Mahenthiran clinched the doubles point with a winner down the doubles alley to give himself and Bhat a 7-5 victory and the Spartans a 1-0 lead.

Mahenthiran, ranked 11th in Division III, continued his strong stretch of play as of late with a 6-1, 6-4 win over Emil Grantcharov, ranked 16th, at first singles, extending CWRU's lead to 2-0. Chicago got on the board with a win in the second singles match, as eighth-ranked Alexander Ekstrand bested sophomore George Kosseifi, ranked 40th nationally, 6-4, 6-3, and then evened the score when Ajer Sher defeated Hishinuma 6-4, 6-4 at fifth singles.

With three matches left on the court and the score knotted at 2-2, the most likely path to victory for the Spartans appeared to be through wins at third and fourth singles. When Chicago pulled even in the team score with the win at second singles, Devaraj, ranked 49th, had won the first set 7-5 and was even in the second set 5-5 against Derek Hsieh in the third singles match, while junior Matthew Plunkett held a 3-0 lead in the third set against 23rd-ranked Choi after splitting the first two sets 6-3, 0-6. Devaraj went on to win the second set in his contest 7-5, putting CWRU just one win away from advancing to the semifinals.

Meanwhile, Plunkett expanded his lead to 4-1 in the third set before Choi rallied back with wins in three-straight games to even the score at 4-4. However, Plunkett held serve to take the lead back and then broke Choi in the next game to win the third set 6-4 and clinch the match for the Spartans.

When play was stopped, sophomore Santiago Salazar Garza had rallied back from a first-set loss to take a lead in the third set, 6-7, 6-4, 2-0.

Chicago closed its season out with a 23-4 overall record, with two of its four losses coming against the Spartans.

Fans can follow tomorrow's NCAA Semifinal match with live statistics at http://webapps3.cmc.edu/livescore/ and live video at https://www.ncaa.com/liveschedule.

Spartan Notes

• The Spartans have now won seven consecutive matches and 21 of their last 22 contests.

• CWRU, making its eighth NCAA Championship appearance, stands at 22-6 all-time in tournament play.

• The Spartans were making their fifth consecutive NCAA DIII quarterfinal appearance. The team is now 4-2 all-time in NCAA quarterfinal matches. This will be the team's fourth trip to the NCAA semifinals in the last five years, with the Spartans going 3-0 in their previous semifinal appearances.

• CWRU improved to 16-3 against nationally-ranked teams this season, including a 4-3 mark against teams ranked in the top-10 nationally.

• The Spartans have now won three of the last four meetings against Chicago and stand at 10-9 against the Maroons since the start of the 2011 campaign.

• CWRU improved to 14-1 when it wins the doubles point this season.