Mareedu Advances to National Semifinals at ITA Cup

ROME, Georgia - First-year Advik Mareedu of the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men's tennis won his first two matches at the ITA Cup in Rome, Georgia, knocking off third seed Thomas Yu of Johns Hopkins in the quarterfinals to advance through to Friday's semifinal round.

Mareedu has still not dropped a set throughout his ITA fall run, winning all five matches at the ITA West Regionals 2-0, and then winning his first two in straight sets on Thursday. He was cruising along, winning his opening match 6-1, 6-0 over Luke Westholder of Luther College, and then up 6-2, 5-2 against Yu in the quarterfinals looking to serve it out. 

Yu dug down, though, and broke Mareedu twice to get back on serve, fighting off two match points, and then held for a 6-5 lead. Mareedu responded to the first adversity of his young career in a big way, coming up with a  hold to stem the momentum and get it to a tiebreaker, and then winning all seven points in the tiebreaker to advance through to the semifinals tomorrow. 

Mareedu will face unseeded Reid Staples of Bowdoin in the semifinals, who upset the second seed, Abhi Ramireddy of WashU, in the quarterfinals. The other semifinal will feature top-seeded Aiden Drover-Mattinen of RPI against fourth-seeded Tristan Bradley of Bowdoin, as the Polar Bears placed two in the semifinals. 

Matthew Robinson and Christian Settles opened play as the No. 2 seed in doubles and barely got their match going when their opponents were forced to withdraw due to an injury. They will advance through to tomorrow's quarterfinals, with the semifinals to follow if they advance. 

The quarterfinal opponent for Robinson/Settles will be Shawn Berdia and Jason Shuler of Williams. A win in that match would pit them against either Ashton Ellis and Oscar Roy of Southwestern, or Derin Acaroglu and Vuk Vuksanovic of Tufts, which be held late Friday afternoon.