Shah claims national runner-up; Big Red concludes historic run at the national championships

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (May 28, 2024) – Over the last week, the Denison University men's tennis team competed in the NCAA Division III Team Championship and the NCAA Division III Individual Championships at the Dwight Davis Tennis Center, hosted by Washinton University in St. Louis. In addition to the Big Red making their first Elite Eight appearance in program history as a team, Denison saw two long runs in the individual championships as sophomore Kael Shah ended his 2024 season as the national runner-up in the NCAA Division III Men's Tennis Singles Championship, while he and classmate Ethan Green fell in the semifinal round of the Doubles Championship.

Singles Championship:

In the first round of the singles championship, No. 18-ranked Jacob Patterson dropped a tough 7-6 (7-3), 6-4 loss to the No. 1 Tristan Bradley from Bowdoin, while No. 10 Shah collected a straight-set 6-1, 6-3 victory over Haverford's Marko Arboleda to earn All-America honors from the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA).
Shah moved on to face No. 4 Jordan Theron from Sewanee in the second round and recorded a 7-5, 3-6, 6-4 win over Theron.
In the quarterfinal round of the singles championship, Shah collected a 4-6, 7-5, 6-2 victory over Williams' No. 3 Matt Kandel.
Shah moved on to face No. 23 Derek Hsieh from Chicago in the semifinal round and recorded a straight-set 6-1, 6-4 win.
In the singles championship final, Shah dropped a tough 4-6, 7-5, 0-6 loss to the top-ranked singles player in the nation, Bowdoin's Tristan Bradley, who defeated Patterson at the beginning of the tournament.

Doubles Championship:

Later on in day one, the No. 19-ranked team of Shah and Green teamed up to take on No. 4 Neel Epstein and Robby Ward from Middlebury in the first round of the doubles championships. The Denison tandem collected a 6-2, 7-5 victory and with their first-round victory, the Denison pair secured All-America honors from the ITA.
Shah and Green teamed up to take on No. 2 Matthew Kandel and Nicholas Chen from Williams in the quarterfinal round of the doubles championships. The Denison pair collected a 6-2, 6-1 victory.
Following the completion of the singles championship, Shah and Green were set to take on No. 7 Tyler Haddorff and Gage Gohl from Gustavus Adolphus in the semifinal round of doubles. The Big Red duo ended their season with a 6-1, 6-4 loss after leading 1-0, 2-1 and 4-2 in the second set.

Team Results (Elite Eight):
No. 8 Denison 3, No. 2 Chicago 5:

No. 8-ranked Denison dropped a 5-3 loss to No. 2 University of Chicago (23-1) in the quarterfinal round of the 2024 NCAA Division III Men's Tennis Championship. The Big Red conclude the 2024 season with a record of 21-5, the North Coast Athletic Conference crown, and the league tournament title.

Doubles

Denison took a 2-1 lead over Chicago after doubles, as Patterson and Andy Mackler claimed an 8-5 victory at No. 2 doubles, and Milan Gonela and Colin Gramley posted an 8-1 victory at No. 3 doubles. With their win in doubles, Patterson and Mackler finished a perfect 18-0 when playing together this season.
Kael Shah and Ethan Green dropped a hard-fought 8-6 loss at the No. 1 flight.

Singles

In Singles, Patterson picked up the Big Red's lone win at the top flight with a 6-2, 6-2 score.
The Maroons won the match after winning the No. 2 (6-2, 6-4), No. 3 (7-5, 6-4), No. 4 (6-2, 6-0), and No. 6 (6-4, 7-5) flights.

Coaches' Thoughts
"We're obviously disappointed. We thought we had a good chance to continue our season, but University of Chicago is one of the best teams in the country. We played really great doubles, probably the best we've played all year, and we came out ahead going into singles. But from there, Chicago put the pressure on and flat out beat us. We are a young team and don't quite have the maturity yet to compete with the top teams in the country. We had a record-breaking season with an Elite Eight finish and the team has made great jumps this year. We had great leadership from our senior class, Zachary Portnoy and Andy Mackler were leaders on and off the court. Our future is bright, we have a strong class coming in and we are going to start working on the team today. I'm proud of these guys." – Head Coach, David Schilling

Season Standouts:
The Record Breaker

With a 161-37 career record between both singles and doubles, Mackler is Denison's all-time winningest player, a mark he reached during Denison's 9-0 win at Wittenberg on April 6, 2024. He has also posted career records of 74-17 in singles and 85-20 in doubles, both of which are program records for career wins. As a senior, Mackler was 27-3 in singles and 34-2 in doubles while in dual matches, he was 17-3 in singles (flights 3-6) and 25-0 in doubles (flights 2-3). With his doubles win vs. Wittenberg in the NCAC quarterfinals, Mackler set Denison's single-season record for doubles wins. Then against Kenyon in the NCAC Tournament Championship, he set the program record for combined wins in one season with 57.

Single-Season Singles Wins:

With four wins in the national singles tournament this week, Shah (33-6) is Denison's new single-season record holder for singles wins. The previous record was 31 wins set by Andreas Chapides in 2023.
Mackler (27-3) ties Tim Cianciola for the third most singles wins in one season in program history.
Patterson (23-5) was on a 15-match winning streak entering the national singles tournament, and was a combined 11-0 between No. 1 and No. 2 singles this season.