hThe fourth-ranked Case Western Reserve University men's tennis team will try to complete its run to the second National Championship in the history of the school when the team faces second-ranked Denison University in the NCAA Division III Championship Match on Thursday, May 22 at 8:00 p.m. ET.

Live Coverage

Live Results: http://webapps3.cmc.edu/livescore/ (live video coverage of each court without commentary is available at this site)

Live Video: https://www.ncaa.com/liveschedule

What's at Stake

The Spartans will be aiming to win their second National Championship in the last three years after winning the title in 2023, the first team championship in the history of CWRU Athletics.

The Spartans

CWRU reached the championship match with a 4-2 win over top-ranked Claremont-Mudd-Scripps in the semifinals on Tuesday and a 4-2 win over the fourth-ranked University of Chicago in the quarterfinals on Monday night. The Spartans have won 22 of their last 23 matches and eight-straight contests to improve to 28-5 overall this season. CWRU earned an automatic berth into the NCAA Championship after winning the 2025 University Athletic Association Championship and receiving a first-round bye in the NCAA Tournament, CWRU went on to best 56th-ranked Whitman College 5-0 in the second round and 13th-ranked Kenyon College 4-0 in the third round to make it to the final site.

The Spartans' lineup features several nationally-ranked singles players, including 11th-ranked senior Ajay Mahenthiran, 40th-ranked sophomore George Kosseifi, and 49th-ranked junior Anmay Devaraj, in addition to a nationally-ranked doubles pairing in 13th-ranked Devaraj and senior Casey Hishinuma. CWRU players hold a combined .743 winning percentage (249-86) in singles matches and a .691 winning percentage (110-49) in doubles play. 

The Big Red

Denison will enter Thursday's match with a 27-2 overall record and has won 19 consecutive matches, including a 4-1 win over third-ranked Tufts University in the semifinals on Tuesday. The Big Red, who earned an automatic bid to the tournament after winning the NCAC Championship, also claimed wins over Greenville in the second round, Swarthmore in the third round, and eighth-ranked Johns Hopkins in the quarterfinals during tournament play. Denison's only two losses this season have been to Chicago and Claremont-Mudd-Scripps.

The Big Red lineup features two of the top-ranked singles players in Division III in third-ranked Kael Shah and fourth-ranked Ethan Green, along with 20th-ranked Jacob Patterson. The team also has a pair of nationally-ranked doubles teams in no. 2 Green and Shah and no. 16 Patterson and Colin Gramley. Denison has gone 185-75 (.712) as a team in singles matches and 95-31 (.754) in doubles contests this season.

Projected Lineups

Matchup History

Thursday's match will be between a pair of teams that are particularly familiar with each other. This will be the third meeting between the two teams this season with Denison winning each match by a 4-2 score. CWRU fell to the Big Red in the third-place match at the ITA Indoor National Championship on February 23 and at the end of the regular season in Granville on April 11.

Prior to the two losses this season, the Spartans had gone 5-0 against the Big Red since the start of the 2020-21 campaign, including a 5-1 win during the round of 16 of the 2023 NCAA Tournament, the only previous postseason matchup between the two teams. 

Spartan Notes

• CWRU, making its eighth NCAA Championship appearance, stands at 23-6 all-time in tournament play.

• This will be the team's fourth trip to the NCAA Championship in the last five years, with the Spartans going 1-2 in their previous National Championship appearances.

• CWRU stands at 17-3 against nationally ranked teams this season, including a 5-3 mark against teams ranked in the top 10 nationally.

• Junior Matthew Plunkett recorded the match-clinching win against both Chicago and CMS and has now won 16 straight singles matches. He stands at 24-5 overall this year.

• Mahenthiran now has 89 career singles victories and is one away from matching former Spartan Anthony Kanam for the third-most singles wins in team history.