No. 5 Men's Tennis Tops No. 27 Redlands To Start West Coast Swing

REDLANDS, CA (March 16, 2026) -- The No. 5-ranked Tufts University men's tennis team continued its strong start to the season with a 6-1 victory over No. 27 University of Redlands on Monday afternoon at the Coach Jim Verdieck Tennis Center.

Tufts (6-0) claimed the doubles point and went on to win five of six singles matches to secure the win in its California road swing opener.

The Jumbos grabbed the early advantage by winning two of the three doubles matches. Tufts struck first at No. 3 doubles as Jackson Rich and Kaetan Mehta earned a 6-4 victory over Jack Hinkle and Mateen Ghafarshad. Redlands answered at No. 2 doubles, where Samuel Parsons and Cooper Whittington defeated Andrej Djokic and Matej Djokic by a 6-4 score to even the doubles session.

The deciding match came at the top spot, where Javier Gonzalez and Sacha Maes closed out a 6-4 win against Marlon Abarca and Vitomir Petcov to give Tufts the 1-0 lead heading into singles play.

The Jumbos quickly built on their advantage once singles began. At No. 1 singles, Javier Gonzalez was the first player off the court, defeating Vitomir Petcov 6-2, 6-4 to extend the Tufts lead to 2-0. Gonzalez upped his spring mark to 3-1, with all three wins coming at the top spot. 

Garv Bahl followed with another point for Tufts at No. 3 singles, posting a 6-3, 6-2 victory against Marlon Abarca to make the score 3-0. Bahl is now 7-1 on the season, and 4-0 in dual matches this year. 

At No. 2 singles, Andrej Djokic clinched the team victory for the Jumbos. After a tightly contested opening set, Djokic pulled out a 7-5 win before taking control in the second set to finish off Gustavo Marcanth 6-2 and secure the match for Tufts at 4-0.

Play continued across the remaining courts. Sacha Maes rallied after dropping the first set at No. 4 singles, bouncing back for a 2-6, 6-1, 6-2 victory over Jack Hinkle. Maes is now 5-1 in 2025-26, while also winning all four of his matches this spring thus far. 

Redlands picked up its lone point of the afternoon at No. 5 singles, where William Pullin edged Stavros Mastrogamvrakis in three sets, 6-4, 1-6, 6-3.

The final match to conclude the day came at No. 6 singles, where Matej Djokic battled through a tight contest with Mateen Ghafarshad. After winning the opening set 6-1 and falling in a second-set tiebreak, Djokic prevailed in the match tiebreak to earn a 6-1, 6-7, 1-0 victory and close out the 6-1 team result for Tufts.

The Jumbos have a day off before taking on No. 2 University of Chicago in Claremont, CA at Biszantz Family Tennis Center on the campus of Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges. 
 

--JUMBOS--