ST. LOUIS, MO (May 21, 2024) -- The No. 6 Tufts University men's tennis team saw its 2024 season come to an end on Tuesday afternoon in the 2024 NCAA Division III Men's Tennis Tournament quarterfinals, battling No. 1 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges before falling 5-3 in action from the Doug Davis Tennis Center in St. Louis.
The Jumbos finish their strong season 18-7 overall as a squad, posting an 8-2 record in the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) while making the conference championship title match. CMS will move on to take on Bowdoin College Wednesday at 1 p.m. EDT.
Tuesday's match was a back-and-forth thriller from the beginning, as all three doubles' matches went to a tiebreak. The three doubles' affairs all ended within three minutes of each other, as CMS took an early lead at No. 3 doubles as Anirudh Reddy and Warren Pham bested
Corey Marley and
Sacha Maes 8-7 (6). In the tiebreak, Marley and Maes battled back from down 6-2 to tie it at six, but the CMS duo would earn the final points for the win.
Tufts came right back to deadlock the match at a win apiece literal seconds later, as
Derin Acaroglu and
Lachie Macintosh posted Josh Kim and Advik Mareedu 8-7 (4). In the match, Acaroglu and Macintosh trailed 7-5 but won the last two games to force a tiebreak. In the tiebreak, the Tufts' duo tallied four of the first five points to pull out the win.
The Staggs (28-3) would earn the extra doubles' point at No. 1, as Matthew Robinson and Ian Freer topped
Vuk Vuksanovic and
Alex Ganchev 8-7 (4).
In singles, CMS gained a 3-1 lead after the Staggs picked up a point at No. 5, but Tufts rallied back at No. 2 as
Javier Gonzalez shook off a 6-1 first set loss to top Freer 1-6, 6-1, 6-1. Gonzalez finished the season 20-9, leading the squad in victories on the year.
Moments prior to that win by Gonzalez, Vuksanovic had secured a 6-3, 6-0 win at No. 1 singles to help the Jumbos deadlock the score at three wins apiece. Vuksanovic moved to 14-5 at the top position for the season.
The Staggs would regain the lead shortly after that though, as Pham bested first-year
Garv Bahl 6-4, 6-4 at No. 6 to make the score 4-3. With two matches left, Tufts was in need of wins in both to pull the upset but Robinson would give the Staggs the clinching win at No. 3 as he shook off a 6-4 loss in the opening stanza to best Macintosh 4-6, 6-1, 6-1.
At No. 4, Acaroglu had won the first set 6-3 before dropping the second set 7-6 (6). He was leading the third set 2-0 when it was abandoned.
The season though will go down as another hugely successful year for the Jumbos, who have now been to the NCAA Championship final site the last three seasons. Tufts made the NCAA Semifinals in 2021-22 before falling in the national championship match to Case Western Reserve University in 2023.
--JUMBOS--
