GREENWOOD, Ind. – The McKendree University men's tennis team continued to make history here Monday morning as the No. 3 seeded Bearcats posted a 4-0 win over No. 6 seeded Tiffin University in the first round of the NCAA Division II Midwest Region 2 Tournament at Center Grove High School.

With the victory, the 35th-ranked Bearcats advance to face 12th-ranked and No. 2 seeded University of Indianapolis in Tuesday's Midwest Region 2 Tournament final at 10 a.m. ET. The match will be third this season between the two schools as UIndy won the regular season meeting, 5-2, in O'Fallon, Ill., but the Bearcats won the most recent meeting, 4-3, at the Dwight Davis Tennis Center in St. Louis, Mo., to claim its first-ever Great Lakes Valley Conference Tournament championship on May 1.

Monday's win, along with advancing the Bearcats to the regional final match, was also the first-ever NCAA Tournament win in school history (in its second ever tournament appearance as they qualified in 2014, but lost in the first round to Northwood) for the Bearcats and it was also the program's school record 21st win of the season as McKendree improved its record to 21-2 overall on the season. The 21 wins bettered the old school record of 20 wins, which was set in both 2009-10 and 2010-11.

In Monday's match, the Bearcats opened by winning the doubles point for the third time in their last four matches, to take a 1-0 lead in the match. In doubles, the No. 2 team of sophomore Subash Paramasivam (Chennai, Tamil India/Saraswathi Kendra) and Senior Vishnu Prasad (Chennai, India/National Institute of Open Schooling) won 6-2 and the No. 3 team of freshman David Leon Mantilla (Lima, Peru/Colegio Parroquial Santa Rosa de Lima) and  sophomore Julappagari Anurag Reddy (Dubai, UAE/CBSE School Nationals) picked up a 6-4 win the No. 3 spot to clinch the doubles point.

McKendree's No. 1 doubles team of junior Leonardo Frederico (Tijucas-Santa Cantrina, Brazil/Unicesumar) and graduate student Boriss Kamdem (Ghent, Belgium/University of Tulsa) were trailing Tiffin's No. 1 team of Matthew Telford and Michael Gurtner, 5-4, when the No. 3 team sealed their win and the doubles point for the Bearcats.

Meanwhile, in singles action, the Bearcats got wins at No. 2, No. 6 and No. 1 singles respectively to earn the match win.

At No. 2 singles, Kamdem, who is ranked 54th nationally in the most recent ITA Division II player rankings, won the first set 6-0 over Gurtner and then won the match when Guertner was forced to retire due to injury after Kamdem won the first game of the second set. Kamdem is now 19-5 in singles on the year.

The second point in singles came at the No. 6 spot by Mantilla as he won 6-1, 6-2 over Daniel Martinez Roca to give the Bearcats a 3-0 lead in the match. Mantilla improved to 11-5 on the season in singles.

Frederico, who was the 2022 GLVC Player of the Year and is ranked 52nd in the most recent ITA Division II singles player rankings, sealed the Bearcats' shutout win with a 6-3, 6-1 win over Fonga at the No. 1 spot. With his win, Frederico improves to 20-4 on the season in singles and extended his win streak to 12 consecutive matches.

The other three singles matches at No. 3, No. 4 and No. 5 were left unfinished when Frederico sealed the match win with his victory at No. 1 singles. The Bearcats were leading in all three of those matches as at No. 3 singles, Paramasiviam had won the first set, 6-2 and they were tied 4-4 in the second set, while Reddy was up 5-0 in a tiebreaker in the first set and Prasad had won the first set 7-6 and was just beginning the second set when the match was clinched.