CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – The No. 5 Tufts University men's tennis team remained unbeaten on the season with a 5-2 non-conference victory over No. 30 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Friday afternoon.
Tufts improved to 5-0 on the year by claiming the doubles point and winning four singles matches in the contest.
The Jumbos took an early 1-0 lead by capturing two of the three doubles matches. At No. 3 doubles, Kaetan Mehta and Jackson Rich put Tufts on the board first with a convincing 6-2 win over SangHyuk Im and Shrish Choudhary. The doubles point was secured shortly after when Javier Gonzalez and Andrej Djokic earned a 6-3 victory against Tyler Li and Hunter Liao at No. 2. MIT's lone doubles win came at the top position where Grant Gallagher and Adam Sun edged Alex Ganchev and Sacha Maes in a 7-6 tiebreaker.
Singles play saw Tufts quickly extend its lead. Sacha Maes was the first to finish, delivering a strong 6-2, 6-1 win over Shrish Choudhary at No. 3 singles to make it 2-0 Jumbos.
Javier Gonzalez followed with another straight-set performance at the top of the lineup, defeating Adam Sun 6-4, 6-1 to give Tufts a 3-0 advantage.
MIT picked up its first point of the afternoon at No. 2 singles, where Hunter Liao defeated Andrej Djokic 6-2, 7-6 to cut the Tufts lead to 3-1.
The Jumbos clinched the match at No. 5 singles as Kaetan Mehta battled to a 7-5, 7-6 victory over Tyler Li, securing the decisive fourth point for Tufts.
The remaining matches were played out, with MIT earning another point at No. 4 singles as Siddharth Marathe edged S. Mastrogamvrakis 6-2, 4-6, 1-0 in a third-set super tiebreaker. Tufts closed the afternoon with a win at No. 6 singles, where Eren Cheung rallied from a first-set tiebreak loss to defeat Grant Gallagher 6-7, 6-2, 1-0.
Tufts will be back in action for its annual Spring Break trip out west, taking on No. 27 University of Redlands in Redlands, California Monday, March 16 at 3 p.m. local time.
--JUMBOS--
