ALTAMONTE SPRINGS, FL – Another top-15 opponent awaited the University of Rochester men's tennis team on Saturday at the University Athletic Association Championships, and unfortunately the Yellowjackets came out on the short end of a 5-1 decision to Case Western Reserve University.
 
Rochester moves to 12-7 on the year with the loss and will play NYU for 7th place in the tournament on Sunday morning.  Case Western Reserve improves to 20-9 and will battle for 5th place on Sunday against Carnegie Mellon.
 
In doubles, the Yellowjackets secured their first point of the tournament at #1 from Masaru Fujimaki and Yifan Shen.  The duo won in a tight 8-7 match over Jonathan Powell and Anthony Kanam, with the UR players edging out a 7-5 win in the tiebreaker.
 
Case Western Reserve took the other two doubles spots to head into singles play with a 2-1 lead.  At #2, Zach Hennessey and Matthew Chen won 8-3 over Sahaj Somani and Pasquale Procaccino.  CWRU's Chaitanya Aduru and Aaron Umen won by the same score over Runjia Fang and Peter Huang at #3.
 
In singles, UR again had some success, but was unable to secure any match points as the overall match was decided before the Yellowjackets could get another win.  This years UAA tournament matches were finished at match decision (first team to 5), rather than being played to conclusion.
 
Fujimaki was poised for another win at #1 singles, much like his match from Friday.  He was leading Chen 6-4 and 3-1 when CWRU earned the clinching point.  Fang was ahead of Kanam at #3 as well, taking the first set 7-6, but not getting a chance to finish the second set.
 
The third unfinished match was at #4 between Tanmay Thakkar and Powell.  Powell was up in that match, 6-2 and ahead 4-2 in the second set.
 
The Spartans ended up winning positions #5 and #6 in straight sets to go ahead 4-1 in the overall score.  Aduru won 6-1, 6-4 over Mark Zolotukhin at #5, while Sam Concannon earned a 6-4, 6-1 win over Somani at #6.
 
Umen needed three sets to earn the match clincher at #2 versus Shen.  Shen opened strong with a 6-0 win in the first set, but Umen rallied, winning 6-1 and then 6-0 to post CWRU's fifth and final point of the day.