Yale Athletics

The Yale men’s tennis team traveled to Philadelphia this past weekend to take part in the ECAC Indoor Championships hosted by Penn. The tournament consisted of seven Ivy League schools, and Delaware played as the eighth team rather than Columbia. The Bulldogs came into the championship ranked as the fifth seed overall.

On the first day of play, Yale was narrowly beat out by the No. 4 seed Quakers of Penn. 

After being swept in doubles, the Bulldogs battled hard to mount a comeback but ended up falling just short. Vignesh Gogineni ’26 started the scoring off by taking down Manfredi Graziani 7–5, 6–2. Penn then took the next three points against Jim Ji ’27, Jason Shuler ’27 and Eric Li ’26. Edward Liao ’28 was able to snag another point by defeating Justin Chung 6–4, 6–3, and Krish Gupta ’28 also won his match against Matthew Rutter 6–3, 6–4. 

However, Yale had dug themselves too deep of a hole early in the match and these late matches only lessened Penn’s margin of victory as they were still able to hold on to win the team match 4–3. 

On Saturday, after falling into the consolation portion of the bracket, the ’Dogs were still able to motivate themselves to bounce back in a strong manner. 

This time around, Yale brought out the brooms in the doubles matches, easily sweeping No. 8 seed Brown. Gogineni and Liao took the first match 6–4, and Ji and Shuler claimed the doubles point for the team when they breezed past their opponents 6–1. Gupta and Aidan Reilly ’25 did not finish their doubles match.

In singles, Gogineni kept up his stellar play by putting the first point on the board when he beat Alex Finkelstein 6–2, 6–4. Shuler defeated Oliver Worth 7–5, 6–2, and Gupta won his match over James Lian 6–2, 7–5. Li, Liao, and Reilly all had their matches ended early after the Bulldogs went up 4–0, clinching the victory.

On the final day of the tournament, Yale took on Dartmouth in the 5th-place match. Again, the Bulldogs swept in doubles, with the duos of Gogineni and Liao and Ji and Li easily handling their opponents by scores of 6–1 and 6–3, respectively. Reilly and Walker Oberg ’25 had their match called early due to the doubles point being claimed already.

In singles, Gogineni won his fifth match of the weekend by beating Guerrero Alvarez 6–3, 7–5. Ji and Shuler both fell, but then Li helped lead the bounce back by taking his match 6–2, 6–4. Reilly lost his match to even the score between the Bulldogs and the Big Green. Liao came up clutch and rolled over his opponent 6–0, 6–2 to not only win his match but also claim the team victory for Yale.

Yale finished in fifth place overall for the weekend, winning their last two matches after losing their opening match. Harvard took home the team title after defeating Princeton 4–2 in the championship.