CMS Men's Tennis to Compete for ITA Singles/Doubles Titles

CLAREMONT, Calif. - Advik Mareedu continued a dominant run in singles at the ITA West Regionals to advance to Sunday's championship, while Matthew Robinson and Christian Settles will compete for the doubles championship tomorrow following Saturday's action at the Biszantz Family Tennis Center.

All three Stags punched their tickets to the ITA Cup in Rome, Georgia in two weeks by reaching the regional championship, and they will vie for All-America honors if they can win a regional title tomorrow. 

Mareedu has been dominant through the first four rounds, as he won his quarterfinal match 6-2, 6-1 on Saturday over Andrew Zabelo of Caltech, and then defeated Stefan Hester of Redlands 6-3, 6-1 to move on to the final. The tournament's second seed, Mareedu earned 6-2, 6-2, and 6-2, 6-1 wins on Friday, giving him an aggregate total of 48-14 in games won over his first four matches. 

His opponent in the finals will be Caleb Wilkins of Chapman, the tournament's No. 5 seed, who denied an All-CMS final by defeating Robinson and Michael Hao in the quarterfinals and finals. The match with Robinson was a thriller, with Wilkins taking the first set in a tiebreaker (7-4), Robinson dominating the second set 6-1, and then Wilkins prevailing 10-8 in the third-set tiebreaker. 

Hao, meanwhile, who won a 15-13 third-set tiebreaker in his first match of the weekend, dominated his quarterfinal 6-1, 6-1 over Andrew Kaelin of Colorado College to set up a meeting with Wilkins in the semis. Wilkins took the first set 6-4, and then Hao ran out of gas as Wilkins advanced through to meet Mareedu with a 6-4, 6-0 win. 

Robinson and Settles won their quarterfinal 8-4, and then had to battle in the semifinals before prevailing 8-6 over Kyle McCandless and Daniel Wen of Caltech, in a match with only one service break. They'll meet Matthew Feng and Eshaan Lumba of Pomona-Pitzer in the final, who prevailed in a tiebreaker in their semifinal. 

The doubles championship will take place at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow, followed by the singles championship at 11 a.m.