No. 7 Tartans Win 5-4 at No. 21 Johns Hopkins

(BALTIMORE, Md.) - The seventh-ranked Carnegie Mellon University men's tennis team defeated 21st-ranked Johns Hopkins University on Saturday, April 9 on the indoor courts at Green Spring Racque Club. The Tartans, now 13-5, picked up a 5-4 victory.

Seniors Abhishek Alla (Hyderabad, India/IMG Pendleton School) and Yuvraj Kumar (New Delhi, India/Millfield School) earned the first point of the day with a 9-7 win at third doubles. The freshmen pair of Vayum Arora (Fremont, Calif./Mission San Jose) and Daniel Levine (Highland Park, Ill./Boca Prep International School), ranked second in the Atlantic South region, was downed by juniors Mike Buxbaum and Jeremy Dubin in a tightly contested match, 9-8 (7-5), at first singles. The second doubles pair of sophomore Jeffrey Chen (Carmel, Ind./Carmel) and junior Kenny Zheng (Pennington, N.J./Hopewell Valley Central) played to the same score but won the point to give the Tartans a 2-1 edge that would prove important down the line.

The Blue Jays (7-3) then won at second and first singles to take a 3-2 lead.

Zheng tied the match at 3-all with a 6-0, 7-5 win at fourth singles against Justin Kang before Arora put the Tartans back in the lead 4-3 with a 6-3, 7-5 win at fifth singles.

With the match in the balance, freshman Chaz Downing (Newport Beach, Calif./Corona Del Mar) came from a set down and rallied in the second-set tiebreaker to force a third set and eventually came-from-behind again to earn the match point for the Tartans at third singles, 6-7 (9-11), 7-6 (8-6), 6-4. In the second-set tiebreaker, Downing trailed 6-3 before winning five straight points for the set win. Facing a 4-3 deficit in the third set, the freshman won three straight games to clinch the match win.

The Tartans will next face No. 27 University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia, on Sunday, April 10.