#7 Tartans Win Twice Against Ranked Foes Saturday

(GAMBIER, Ohio) - The seventh-ranked Carnegie Mellon University men's tennis team traveled to Kenyon College to face 24th-ranked Kenyon and 26th-ranked Lewis & Clark College. The Tartans earned two victories, 5-4 versus Kenyon and 5-0 versus Lewis & Clark, to improve to 13-7 on the year.

The day started with the Tartans against the Pioneers of Lewis & Clark. The Tartans led 3-0 after doubles play with sophomores Daniel Levine (Highland Park, Ill./Boca Prep International School) and Vayum Arora (Fremont, Calif./Mission San Jose) earning the first point at first doubles with an 8-1 win. Junior Jeffrey Chen (Carmel, Ind./Carmel) and sophomore Chaz Downing (Newport Beach, Calif./Corona Del Mar) won 8-5 at second doubles while senior Kenny Zheng (Pennington, N.J./Hopewell Valley Central) and freshman Mark Prettyman (Fairfax, Va./Thomas Jefferson) won 8-3 at third doubles.

With the match being played on four indoor courts and to decision, the Tartans earned wins at second and fourth singles to end the match by a 5-0 score. Earning the victories was Downing at second singles, 6-4, 6-3, and senior Kiril Kirkov (Tampa, Fla./C. Leon King) at fourth singles, 6-1, 6-3.

Against Kenyon, the Tartans rallied from down one to hold a 2-1 advantage after doubles play, earning wins at second and third doubles.

The second doubles team of Chen and Downing forced a tiebreaker which they won 7-4 to earn what was a pivitol point for the team.

Levine's match at first singles was first to finish, as he won 6-1, 6-0 to give the Tartans a 3-1 lead.

Kenyon tied the score at 3-all with wins at second and fourth singles and took a 4-3 lead with a victory at third singles.

Kirkov closed out his sixth singles match with a 6-2, 6-2 win before Arora earned match point with a 7-5, 7-6 (7-3) win at fifth singles. Arora trailed 5-1 in the first set before winning six straight games.

The Tartans will next face the No. 16 University of Mary Washington on Saturday, April 8 and No. 20 Johns Hopkins University on Sunday, April 9. Both matches will be played at home in Pittsburgh.