Ending a 12-year drought, the men’s tennis team won the ECAC Division I Indoor Tennis Championship this past weekend at the Hecht Tennis Center.
Penn entered the seven-team field as the fifth seed. The other participants were Dartmouth, Yale, Brown, Harvard, Princeton, and Cornell.
In the opening round on Friday afternoon, the Quakers defeated No. 4-seeded Cornell 4-0. Senior Dmitry Shatalin opened singles competition with a win over Pietro Rimondini in straight sets, 6-4, 6-1.
At 3 p.m. on Saturday, the Red & Blue bested top-seeded Dartmouth, the defending Ivy League champions, 4-3.
Senior Kyle Mautner, Penn’s No. 1 singles player, earned a win against Charlie Broom, the No. 34-ranked player in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association. Mautner, a three-time First-Team All-Ivy selection, won both sets 7-5, 7-5.
Versus No. 3-seeded Harvard in the finale on Sunday, the Red & Blue topped the Crimson 4-3 to take home the title. The contest was decided in the final match. Junior Max Cancilla defeated Constantin Zoske 6-4, 6-7, 6-3, to clinch the championship.
The Quakers, winners of eight straight, are 9-0 at home and 9-1 overall. Their only loss came against No. 11 Baylor. They finished their fall season with 15 wins, the most since 2006.
