ALTAMONTE SPRINGS, FL – The 3rd-ranked Case Western Reserve University men's tennis team advanced at the UAA Championships on Thursday morning, defeating the University of Rochester by a 5-0 score at Sanlando Park.
The matchup was the second straight season Rochester (9-5) matched up with a nationally-ranked Spartans squad in the UAA quarterfinals, with CWRU (24-4) also earning a 5-0 win during last seasons first round.
CWRU boasts a stacked lineup in both singles and doubles, featuring four nationally ranked singles players and one nationally ranked doubles team, in addition to one other doubles pair and a fifth singles player that sit in the Central Region rankings released yesterday.
In Thursday's match, Rochester was able to hang tough, securing at least three games in all three doubles matchups.
In the first doubles match, Case Western Reserve's Vishwa Aduri and Diego Maza are ranked #2 nationally in Division III and jumped out early winning the first two games. Rochester's
Kai Yuminaga and
Ethan Samora battled right back with two straight wins of their own, knotting the match at 2-2.
The teams alternated game wins over the next four, eventually reaching a 4-4 score before the Spartans top team won four straight to seal the match victory.
A similar start occurred between in second doubles match. CWRU's pair of Anmay Devaraj and Sahil Deyal opened up the match with back-to-back games. UR fired back with
Krish Vennam and
Surya Rajamani winning to straight. A big run from the Spartans duo saw the lead jump to 7-2 before Rochester could gain another point. UR's momentum didn't last though, as CWRU won the next game to post the 8-3 win.
In the third doubles match, Daniel French and Michael Sutanto also jumped ahead in the early going 2-0. Rochester's team of David Ricco and
Kavin Shukla ended up tying the score 2-2 before two more games went to CWRU. UR eventually got within one at 4-3 and 5-4, but three straight wins after that from French and Sutanto earned the 8-4 win and doubles sweep for the Spartans.
Matches at the UAA Championships are played to decision, rather than completion, so Case Western Reserve needed to win only two of six singles points to clinch the match and move on.
The Spartans ultimately earned those two points in straight sets, earning the 5-0 overall win. Regionally ranked Maza was a 6-0, 6-1 winner for CWRU at number six over
Rahul Ravi, with Sutanto, the #32 ranked Division III singles player, topping Shukla 6-3, 6-2 at the three position for the clinching point.
Rochester was right there with their Spartan opponents in the other four matches which were not completed.
At one, Yuminaga took on #8 ranked Ajay Mahenthiran, with the two battling to a tie break in the opening set. Mahenthiran ended up edging Yuminaga 7-6 (5) before UR's top player held a 1-0 lead in the second at the time the match was finished.
UR's Vennam sat up 2-1 in the second set at number two against a nationally ranked Aduru at the two spot. Vennam was trailing by a set after Aduru won 6-4 in the opening set.
Kei Ogawa played number four singles for Rochester and was matched up with Ansh Shah. Shah was up 6-3, 3-1 in the match when CWRU earned its fifth overall team point.
In the five slot, Samora took on Casey Hishinuma who opened the match with a 6-3 win. In the second, UR's first-year player was up 4-3 at the time the match was decided.
On Friday, UR will play in the consolation round against sixth-seeded NYU at 12:30 pm. The Violets lost 5-1 in Thursday's quarterfinals to third-seeded Emory. That matchup will be a rematch from a couple weekends ago, when NYU topped Rochester 6-3 on April 14 at the Goergen Athletic Center.
