Mareedu, Gupta Advance to ITA West Region Quarterfinals for CMS Men's Tennis

CLAREMONT, Calif. - Top-seeded Advik Mareedu won a pair of straight-set matches, and Anirudh Gupta had a pair of dominant wins as well, as the Stags sent two players through to the ITA West Region quarterfinals after a pair of wins on Friday.

Amar Kumar also earned a pair of wins in the second flight to advance through to the quarterfinals in his bracket. 

Mareedu won the ITA West Regional as a first-year last fall, and then went on to earn the ITA Cup singles title in Rome Georgia. He is now 11-0 all-time in ITA fall competitions after winning 6-2, 6-3 over Constantin Cedillo-Yayson de Pradenne of Caltech and 6-0, 6-2 over Samuel English of Pomona-Pitzer. 

He will next face Andrew Kaelin of Colorado College in the quarterfinals on Saturday, where a win could create an All-Stag matchup in the semifinals if Gupta also wins his quarterfinal over No. 3 seed Dominic Anderson of Redlands. Gupta lost only eight games combined in two matches, defeating Ronald Chen of Occidental 6-0, 6-4 in his opening round, and then defeating No. 5 seed Daniel Wen of Caltech 6-3, 6-1. 

In other singles action, Josh Kim fell 6-4, 6-1 to No. 2 seed Caleb Wilkins of Chapman, Anirudh Reddy fell 6-4, 7-5 to fifth-seeded Kyle McCandless of Caltech, and Rarm Rojanasoonthon had a tough three-set defeat to Gustavo Marcanth of Redlands, who took the third-set tiebreaker 13-11. Kim, Reddy and Rojanasoonthon will all be in the consolation bracket looking to bounce back and close out the ITA Regionals on a high note. 

Gupta and Kumar won their first doubles match against Cal Lutheran, but fell to Eshaan Lumba and Matthew Feng of Pomona-Pitzer in the second round. Kim and Reddy also took an 8-6 win over UC Santa Cruz, but fell to the Sagehen team of Neil Chulani and Ethan Lee 8-7 in a tiebreaker. Mareedu and Rojanasoonthon fell 8-6 in their opening doubles match to Luke Feng and John Wehrle of Pomona-Pitzer. 

CMS is competing at the ITA Regionals without several players who are not in action this fall due to studying abroad, injuries, etc., including Matthew Robinson (2), Ian Freer (3), Warren Pham (5) and Daniel Blackman (6), who were in the CMS singles lineup in the NCAA Quarterfinals and Semifinals last year.