From Case Western Reserve University Athletics
The 12th-ranked Case Western Reserve University men's tennis team claimed its seventh-straight win on Sunday afternoon, defeating Oberlin College 6-3 at the Carlton Courts in Cleveland, Ohio.
The win raised the Spartans' record to 17-4 for the year, and moved the team within five wins of the school's single-season record (set in the 2012-13 and 2015-16 seasons) with seven matches remaining in the regular season. Oberlin, which was nationally-ranked earlier in the season and entered the weekend ranked 11thin the Central Region, fell to 13-8 with the loss.
Playing on their outdoor home courts for the first time this season, the Spartans won two of the three doubles matches and four of the six singles contests to claim the victory. Wins in doubles action during the match came from seniors James Fojtasek and Phillip Gruber in the no. 2 contest (8-3 over Stephen Gruppuso and Abraham Davis) and from sophomore David Zakhodin and Anthony Kanam in the no. 3 contest (8-2 over Manickam Manickam and Levi Kimmel). Fojtasek and Gruber improved to 11-5 together in doubles action this season with the win, their fourth-straight victory and third in as many attempts over the weekend.
CWRU's lone doubles setback was in the first match, where senior Fred Daum and sophomore John Benedetto lost an 8-6 decision to Oberlin's Jeremy Lichtmacher and Ian Paik.
In singles play, sophomore Rob Stroup defeated Gruppuso 6-4, 7-6 in the third singles match, while senior Kevin Dong added a 6-3, 7-6 win over Manickam at fourth singles. Adding on singles wins were senior Josh Dughi, with a 6-4, 6-4 victory over Robert Gittings, and freshman Sam Concannon, with a 6-1, 6-1 win over Paul Farah. The win on Sunday was the sixth-straight for Concannon, as the first-year player improved to a team-leading 19-6 in singles matches this season.
In the first singles match, Fojtasek fell to Paik 6-2, 6-2, while freshman Siddharth Rajupet dropped a 6-2, 6-2 match to Michael Drougas at second singles.