#7 Men’s Tennis Drops Battle to #2 Emory in ITA Indoor Championship Semifinals

(CLEVELAND, Ohio) - The seventh-ranked Carnegie Mellon University men's tennis team played second-ranked Emory University in the semifinals of the 2017 ITA National Men's Indoor Team Championship on Saturday, February 25 and dropped a 5-4 match to the Eagles. The three-day event is being held at the Cleveland Racquet Club in Cleveland, Ohio. Carnegie Mellon is now 6-5 while Emory moves to 4-2.

Carnegie Mellon fell behind 1-0 after dropping a decision at third doubles. Minutes following the Eagles win, Carnegie Mellon pulled even, as sophomores Daniel Levine (Highland Park, Ill./Boca Prep International School) and Vayum Arora (Fremont, Calif./Mission San Jose) won 8-4 over Scott Rubinstein and James Spaulding at first doubles.  The Tartans second doubles team of senior Kenny Zheng (Pennington, N.J./Hopewell Valley Central) and junior Jeffrey Chen (Carmel, Ind.) won a thrilling, 9-8 (3), decision over Adrien Bouchet and Max Renke to give Carnegie Mellon a 2-1 advantage heading into singles play.

Emory won at third and fourth singles to grab a 3-2 lead. Levine then defeated Aman Manji in three sets to knot the score at 3-3. The sophomore dropped the first set 6-4 before winning 6-4 and 6-2 in sets two and three.  The Eagles then sealed the match with two three-set wins at second and fifth singles.  

The Tartans fourth point came at sixth singles when senior Kunal Wadwani (Saratoga, Calif./Ballarmine College Prep) defeated Josh Goodman 6-4, 6-3.

The Tartans will now face fourth-ranked Washington University (Mo.) on Sunday, February 26 at 8:00 a.m. in the third-place match.