No. 5 Tartans Ousted from NCAA Championship by No. 26 Johns Hopkins

(PITTSBURGH, Pa.) – The fifth-ranked Carnegie Mellon University men's tennis team hosted 26th-ranked Johns Hopkins University in the 2016 NCAA Division III Regional Championship on Saturday, May 14.  In a tight battle between Atlantic South rivals, the Blue Jays (19-5) earned a 5-3 victory to advance to the quarterfinals for the third straight year.

After trailing 2-0 in doubles play, they Tartans' No. 2 team of junior Kenny Zheng (Pennington, N.J./Hopewell Valley Central) and sophomore Jeffrey Chen (Carmel, Ind./Carmel) won a 9-8 (8-6) thriller over Nicholas Garcia and Emerson Walsh to cut the deficit in half heading into singles play. The tandem forced a tiebreaker after falling behind 8-7.

Freshman Vayum Arora (Fremont, Calif./Mission San Jose) tied the match, winning 6-2, 6-4 against Scott Thygesen at fifth singles. A little later, senior Yuvraj Kumar (New Delhi, India/Millfield School) won his sixth singles match, 6-4, 6-4, to tie the match at 3-apiece.

Garcia then pulled the Blue Jays within match point with a 6-4, 6-4 win at No. 3 singles against Tartan freshman Chaz Downing (Newport Beach, Calif./Corona Del Mar).

With Zheng in the middle of a third set at fourth singles, senior Abhishek Alla (Hyderabad, India/IMG Pendleton School) was in a battle at first singles, trying to force a third set. Alla ended up dropping a second-set tiebreaker 9-7 as Mike Buxbaum earned the match point with a 6-4, 7-6 victory.

The Tartans end the year with a 17-7 record after competing in the NCAA tournament for the second time in four years.