{"id":918691,"date":"2026-10-03T05:12:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T05:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/918691\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T05:12:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T05:12:16","slug":"1-mens-tennis-opens-ita-central-regionals-with-perfect-14-0-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/918691\/","title":{"rendered":"#1 Men’s Tennis Opens ITA Central Regionals with Perfect 14-0 Day"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n Story Links
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INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — The top-ranked University of Chicago men’s tennis team kicked off its ITA Central Region Tournament with a perfect day on the courts, finishing 6-0 overall in doubles and 8-0 overall in singles.<\/p>\n

The Maroons rolled through doubles play to open the day with six wins as all three UChicago teams reached the Round of 16. The freshman duo of Chase Kelley<\/a> and Jesse Yang<\/a> entered the tournament as the #6 overall seed, but the duo looked unstoppable on Friday, dropping just one game in their two matches. Kelley and Yang earned an 8-0 bagel against Earlham and picked up an 8-1 win over Kenyon in the opening day.<\/p>\n

Alexander Ekstrand<\/a> and Gopal Koduri<\/a> entered the weekend as the #5 overall seed. Ekstrand and Koduri rolled to an 8-2 win over Baldwin Wallace before taking down Lake Forest 8-4. Heyang Li<\/a> and Timothy Nguyen<\/a>\u00a0rounded out the doubles play for the Maroons with an 8-5 win over North Central and an 8-2 victory over Augustana.<\/p>\n

In singles play, Ekstrand entered as the #2 overall seed, and he showed why on the opening day. The senior dropped just three total games in two wins, defeating Otterbein (6-0, 6-1) and Illinois Tech (6-1, 6-1) to reach the Round of 16. The other top-8 seed for the Maroons, Yang fought off a tough battle from Wooster in the opening round with a 6-2, 7-6(8-6) win. He then rolled past Wabash 6-1, 6-2 to join Ekstrand in the Round of 16.<\/p>\n

Matthew Liew<\/a> and Ajer Sher<\/a> rounded out singles play for UChicago with two more perfect 2-0 days. Liew dominated in the opening round with a 6-0, 6-1 win over Earlham, and he pulled out a tough second-round match with a 7-6(7-2), 6-2 win over Augustana. Sher capped off the day with two more straight-set wins as he picked up a 6-4, 6-0 win over Illinois Wesleyan and a 6-3, 6-2 win over Kenyon.<\/p>\n

The Maroons will return to the court on Saturday to begin the Round of 16 of doubles play, the Round of 16 of singles play in the A draw, and the Round of 32 of singles play in the B draw.

\n\u00a0 \n<\/p>\n

FRIDAY SINGLES MATCHES:
\nRound of 64
\n* A Flight – #2\u00a0Alexander Ekstrand<\/a> (UChicago) d. Tyler Thomas (Otterbein) (6-0, 6-1)
\n* A Flight – #4\u00a0Jesse Yang<\/a>\u00a0(UChicago) d. Anthony VanOyen (Wooster) (6-2, 7-6(8-6))
\n* A Flight – #9\u00a0Matthew Liew<\/a>\u00a0(UChicago) d. Dev Agrawal (Earlham) (6-0, 6-1)
\n* A Flight – #9\u00a0Ajer Sher<\/a>\u00a0(UChicago) d. Umar Bajwa (Illinois Wesleyan) (6-4, 6-0)<\/p>\n

Round of 32

\n*\u00a0A Flight – #2\u00a0Alexander Ekstrand<\/a> (UChicago) d. Edvard Veres Bergsten (Illinois Tech) (6-1, 6-1)

\n* A Flight – #4\u00a0Jesse Yang<\/a>\u00a0(UChicago) d. Samuel Soto Garcia (Wabash) (6-1, 6-2)

\n*\u00a0A Flight – #9\u00a0Matthew Liew<\/a>\u00a0(UChicago) d. Santiago Diaz (Augustana-IL) (7-6(7-2), 6-2)

\n*\u00a0A Flight – #9\u00a0Ajer Sher<\/a>\u00a0(UChicago) d. Jay Dixit (Kenyon)\u00a0(6-3, 6-2)
\n \n<\/p>\n

FRIDAY DOUBLES MATCHES:
\nRound of 64
\n* #9 Heyang Li<\/a>\u00a0\/ Timothy Nguyen<\/a>\u00a0(UChicago) d.\u00a0Rafael Lessa \/ Andres Valverde (North Central-IL) (8-5)
\n* #6\u00a0Chase Kelley<\/a>\u00a0\/ Jesse Yang<\/a>\u00a0(UChicago) d. Francisco Herrera \/ Alonso Rivera (Earlham) (8-0)
\n* #5\u00a0Alexander Ekstrand<\/a>\u00a0\/ Gopal Koduri<\/a>\u00a0(UChicago) d. Vincent Cannata \/ Tyler Fenton (Baldwin Wallace) (8-2)<\/p>\n

Round of 32

\n* #9 Heyang Li<\/a>\u00a0\/ Timothy Nguyen<\/a>\u00a0(UChicago)\u00a0d. Aingeru Garcia Acebo \/ Jorge Marcelo Escribano (Augustana-IL) (8-2)

\n* #6\u00a0Chase Kelley<\/a>\u00a0\/ Jesse Yang<\/a>\u00a0(UChicago) d. Stylianos Papamichael \/ Aditya Shah (Kenyon) (8-1)

\n* #5\u00a0Alexander Ekstrand<\/a>\u00a0\/ Gopal Koduri<\/a>\u00a0(UChicago) d. Dikshan Chhikara \/ Tim Pasea (Lake Forest) (8-4)
\n \n<\/p>\n

SATURDAY SINGLES MATCHES:
\nRound of 32
\n* B Flight –\u00a0Heyang Li<\/a>\u00a0(UChicago) vs. Paul Castleman\u00a0(DePauw)
\n* B Flight –\u00a0Timothy Nguyen<\/a>\u00a0(UChicago) vs.\u00a0Viktor Ronnberg (DePauw)<\/p>\n

Round of 16

\n* 12:30 PM ET – A Flight – #9\u00a0Matthew Liew<\/a>\u00a0(UChicago) vs. #6 George Kosseifi (Case Western)

\n* 1 PM ET – A Flight – #4\u00a0Jesse Yang<\/a>\u00a0(UChicago) vs. #9 Aidan Borosko (Denison)

\n* 1 PM ET – A Flight – #9\u00a0Ajer Sher<\/a>\u00a0(UChicago) vs. #3 Santiago Salazar Garza (Case Western)

\n* 1 PM ET – A Flight – #2\u00a0Alexander Ekstrand<\/a> (UChicago) vs. #9 Rowan Matorin (Case Western)
\n \n<\/p>\n

SATURDAY\u00a0DOUBLES MATCHES:
\nRound of 16
\n* #9 Heyang Li<\/a>\u00a0\/ Timothy Nguyen<\/a>\u00a0(UChicago) vs. #1 Trey Lambright \/ Derek Shiffer (Case Western)
\n* #6\u00a0Chase Kelley<\/a>\u00a0\/ Jesse Yang<\/a>\u00a0(UChicago) vs. #9 Peter Berns \/ Aidan Borosko (Denison)
\n* #5\u00a0Alexander Ekstrand<\/a>\u00a0\/ Gopal Koduri<\/a>\u00a0(UChicago) vs. #9 Nicholas Meyers \/ Chika Nwaozuzu (Denison)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Story Links INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — The top-ranked University of Chicago men’s tennis team kicked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":918692,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-918691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=918691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/918692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=918691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=918691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=918691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}