PASADENA, Calif. – The Brandeis University men's tennis team opened its season today with a nationally-ranked win as the #21 Judges defeated #32 Cal Tech, 5-4, in the first match of Brandeis's February break trip to California. With the win, the Judges are 1-0, while the Beavers fall to 1-1.
Brandeis used its strong doubles play to help clinch victory. Sophomore Rajan Vohra (Glen Head, N.Y./North Shore) and senior Tyler Ng (Great Neck, N.Y./Great Neck South) opened the scoring with an 8-6 win at No. 3, while rookies Jeffrey Chen (Northfield, Ill./New Trier) and Adam Tzeng (Eagle, Idaho/Eagle) were 8-4 winners at No. 2 in their first dual match as a team. At the No. 1 spot the tandem of junior David Aizenberg (Highland Park, Ill./Highland Park) and sophomore Anupreeth Coramutla (Monroe Township, N.J./Phillips Andover) were down a break for much of their match, but broke down 7-6 and came back to win the tiebreaker, 7-4, for an 8-7 win.
The doubles sweep was crucial, as Cal Tech would go on to win four of six singles matches. The hosts' Varun Shanker avenged his doubles loss to Aizenberg, 6-4, 6-4, at No. 1 to get Cal Tech on the board. Brandeis got their first singles point at No. 5, where Chen defeated Kevin Yu , 6-0, 7-5. The Beavers staved off Brandeis's victory at No. 2, where James Wei topped Coramutla, 6-4, 6-4, in another doubles rematch.
The final three matches went to three sets, and Brandeis finally clinched victory at No. 3, where sophomore Nikhil Das (Smithfield, R.I./Moses Brown School) came from a set down to win, 3-6, 6-3, 6-1, and clinch the match.
Brandeis is back in action tomorrow afternoon at #12 Pomona-Pitzer.