ITHACA, N.Y. - Thanks to a clean sweep in doubles play, the No. 22 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) men's tennis team advanced to their sixth straight Liberty League Championship match with a 5-0 win over Skidmore in the semifinal match on Saturday. The win also makes it 14 straight victories for the Engineerrs as well.
Aiden Drover-Mattinen and
Andy Zhu teamed up for an 8-1 win at No. 1 singles before the other two groups battled for victory.
Joel McCandless and
Tsubi Okada took an 8-5 victory before
Bryce Burnham and
Jonathan McMillan gutted out an 8-7 (4) win at No. 3 doubles.
With the 3-0 lead, RPI needed just two points in singles to clinch the match, and got just that from
Tasmay Shah and Okada. Shah came through at No. 6 singles with a 6-2, 6-0 win to get match point before Okada collected a 7-5, 6-2 win to take the match. All other matchups went unfinshed.
RPI will meet Vassar College for the Liberty League Championship on Sunday morning at 9 a.m. from the Reis Tennis Center in Ithaca.