MEDFORD, MA (May 11, 2025) - The No. 3 Tufts University men's tennis team returned home to Medford to play on the Vouté Tennis Courts in the NCAA Third Round of the tournament.
The Jumbos took care of business yesterday, beating Goucher College 4-0 to move ahead in the tournament and face the No. 12 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) Engineers. The Engineers won the Liberty League for the fourth consecutive year, giving them five league titles in the last eight seasons. RPI put together an impressive 19-3 record, beating the No. 6 Emory Eagles, No. 26 New York University Violets and the No. 11 Amherst Mammoths, twice. The Jumbos definitely had their work cut out for them, but demonstrated extreme consistency to knock off a strong RPI lineup 4-1 Sunday afternoon to move into the NCAA Quarterfinals.
No. 1 doubles featured two pairings who are set to appear at the NCAA Division III Men's Tennis doubles championships.
Vuk Vuksanovic and
Javier Gonzalez beat Aiden Drover-Mattinen and Andy Zhu 6-2 to give the Bo's a lead in doubles.
Derin Acaroglu and
Nico Tremblay couldn't find much of a rhythm at No. 3 doubles, losing 6-2 to Tasmay Shah and Nico Luis. No. 2 doubles was an incredibly tight match for
Sacha Maes and
Alex Ganchev. After six games, they found themselves tied at 3-3. They produced a massive break to take the lead 4-3 and from there they couldn't be stopped winning 6-3 and securing a 1-0 match lead for the Bos.
After battling each other in doubles, Gonzalez now had to play Zhu at No. 2 singles. The first set was tight with Gonzalez narrowly pulling ahead 6-3. In the second set, Zhu couldn't match Gonzalez, losing six straight games and giving the Bo's a 2-0 match lead.
Garv Bahl was the next Jumbo to finish at No. 5 singles. He struggled early to find momentum and lost the first set 6-0. Shah proved to be too much to handle, and also took the second set, giving the Engineers their only point of the day.
At No. 3 singles Acaroglu took down Archit Yemula in straight sets to move his season record to 11-4.
Senior
Lachie Macintosh put on an absolute clinic at No. 4 singles and provided the match-clinching point. He dismantled Okada 6-1, 7-5, for his seventh win of the season and booked the Jumbos a trip to the Elite Eight.
No. 1 singles was an absolute showdown between Intercollegiate Tennis Association Division III nationally No. 2 ranked Vuksanovic and No.8-ranked Drover-Mattinen. Vuksanovic entered the match riding a 13-match win streak while Drover-Mattinen had yet to lose this season, winning all eighteen matches he had played. Drover-Mattinen left little room for Vuksanovic to make errors and took the first set 6-4. Vuksanovic powered himself to a 6-3 second set win behind his trademark first serves. The third set was abandoned when Tufts won its fourth point.
Freshman
Stavros Mastrogamvrakis was tied at one set apiece with Luis at No. 6 singles when the match ended.
The Jumbos will travel to Claremont, California next week to play the No. 6 Emory University Eagles in the NCAA quarterfinals. The match will be played next Monday, May 19 at the Biszantz Family Tennis Center on the campus of Claremont-Mudd-Scripps College. The exact match time will be announced later in the week.
--JUMBOS--
