Story written by Ben Lable, Athletic Communications Student Intern

MIDDLETOWN, CT (May 1, 2026) - The No. 4 Tufts University men's tennis team started their pursuit of the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) championship early Friday morning, sweeping the No. 51 Bates College Bobcats 4-0.

Tufts left the regular season with a 13-match win streak and wasted no time extending that record in the quarterfinals of the NESCAC championship hosted at Wesleyan University. Earlier this season, Tufts hosted Bates for a regular season match, where they produced a 7-0 sweep. Matches in the NESCAC tournament are played to clinch, meaning that once a team secures four points, the rest of the matches are abandoned and the match is over. 

The Bo's got right to work in doubles, as Kaetan Mehta and Andrej Djokic beat Eric Diop and Josh Maller 6-1 in just 23 minutes at No. 2 doubles. Just seconds behind them, Stavros Mastrogamvrakis and Javier Gonzalez produced the same scoreline at No. 3 doubles over Nicolas Ozer and James Sacco. These two doubles victories clinched the doubles point, and the No. 1 doubles match was abandoned.

Heading into singles play, the Jumbos didn't slow down one bit, showing just how seriously they want this NESCAC championship title. Mehta was a beast at No. 5 singles, beating Ozer in under an hour and only dropping a single game over two sets. The 6-1, 6-0 victory gave the Jumbos their second point and improved Mehta to 13-1 in singles this year.
No. 6 singles saw Mastrogamvrakis also put up a dominant performance in just an hour and two minutes. He faced little resistance from Sacco and won both sets 6-2, picking up his eleventh win of the season.

Djokic was able to clinch the match for Tufts and punch their ticket to the semifinals as he beat Diop 6-2, 6-2 at No. 2 singles just a minute after Mastrogamvrakis finished up. After Tufts got their fourth point, Bates was mathematically eliminated and the rest of the matches were halted. The Bo's were up a set at both No. 3 and No. 4 singles and were down a set at No. 1 singles when the match ended.

Tomorrow at 11 am, the Jumbos will take on the No. 17 Amherst Mammoths in the semifinals of the NESCAC championship. When the two teams played earlier in the season, Tufts won convincingly 6-1. Amherst held a 7-3 NESCAC regular season record which left them as the 5-seed in the tournament. At the same time as the Tufts match, Amherst took down Williams College 4-0 to secure their spot in the semis.