ST LOUIS, MO (May 26, 2026) -- Although the Tufts University men's tennis team ended its season this past Tuesday with their NCAA Quarterfinals loss to Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges, a match hosted by Washington University, it did not mark the end of collegiate competition for the whole squad. Sophomore Alex Genchev and junior Vuk Vuksanovic stayed in St Louis for the NCAA Singles and Doubles Championships, also hosted by Washington University. While the two teammates are competing in the doubles tournament, Vuksanovic is also representing the Jumbos in singles.
On the singles side, Vuksanovic had a stellar first day, winning two matches to qualify for the quarterfinal round. In his first match of the day, Vuksanovic took down Luke VanDonslear of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater by a score of 6-1, 6-1. He followed that up with another win in the round of 16, beating Dylan Walters of Brandeis University by a 5-7, 6-1, 6-3 score.
In his round of 32 match-up, Vukasonvic jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the first set, before eventually taking the set 6 games to 1. He proceeded to win the second set by the same score, earning himself a commanding victory en route to the Sweet 16.
In his match-up with Walters, Vuksanovic found himself down 4 games to 1 in the first set. Though he rallied back to even the set at 4 games a piece, he then eventually dropped the set by a 5-7 score. He came back strong, winning the second set 6-1 to even the match and set up a deciding third set. After the players traded the first two games of set 3, Vuksanovic won game three and then broke in the fourth game to go up 3-1. It was a lead he would not relinquish, as he took the set 6-3.
With his two victories, Vuksanovic moves on to face Andreas Sillaste of Amherst College tomorrow morning in a quarterfinal match scheduled for 9 a.m. The two faced off this past April in Medford, with Vuksanovic pulling out a narrow victory in a 6-4, 2-6, 1-0 (tiebreaker 11-9) decision.
Vuksanovic picked up a third victory later in the day, this time alongside teammate Alex Genchev in doubles competition. The two faced off against Vishwa Aduru and Diego Maza of Case Western Reserve University in the doubles round of 16.
A tense first set saw the pairs trading games until it was knotted up at 6 games a piece. In the tie-breaker, the Jumbos duo racked up six consecutive points to win it 7-2, and take the overall set 7-6. Vuksanovic and Genchev came out slower in the second set, falling down 4 games to 1 and eventually losing 6-2. Midway through set number three, Tufts held serve to go up 4-3. They then came back from 30-love down to win a huge break game that propelled them to a 6-4 win in the final set.
Overall, the score was 77- 62, 2-6, 6-3, in favor of Vuksanovic and Ganchev. The Tufts duo moves on to the quarter-finals, where they face off with Aiden Drover-Mattinen and Andy Zhu of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. That match is scheduled for tomorrow at 3 p.m.
--JUMBOS--
