The No. 3 Gustavus Adolphus men’s tennis team advanced to the semifinal round of the ITA Division III National Men’s Indoor Team Championships with a 9-0 win over No. 23 Swarthmore. Andy Bryan (Jr., Edina, Minn.), Jesse Brauer (Sr., Mankato, Minn./West), Mike Burdakin (So., Bettendorf, Iowa), and Charlie Paukert (So., Grand Forks, N.D./Central) each picked both doubles and singles wins in the dual.
Gustavus swept the three doubles matches with Brauer and Bryan posting an 8-1 win over Jon Reiss and Jonathan Lo at No. 1, Burdakin and Paukert tackling Kevin Shaugnessy and Brian Nalitt 8-3 at No. 2, and Nick Hansen (So., Duluth, Minn./East) and Ben Tomasek (So., Oakdale, Minn./North St. Paul) topping Mark Greenburg and Sam Sidhu 8-2 at the No. 3 position.
Moving over to singles play, Bryan needed three sets to defeat Reiss at No. 1 (3-6, 6-2, 6-4), while the rest of the Gustavus lineup was able to put away their opponents in straight sets. Brauer defeated Lo 6-0, 6-1 at No. 2 singles, John Kauss (So., St. Paul, Minn./Harding) bested Nalitt 6-3, 6-3 at No. 3, Burdakin topped Shaughnessy 6-0, 6-1 at No. 4, Paukert downed JJ England 6-0, 6-2 at No. 5, and Danny Suchy (Sr., La Crosse, Wis./Central) defeated Shingo Murata 6-2, 6-3 at No. 6 to complete the sweep.
The Gusties will face No. 2 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps in a 2 p.m. Saturday afternoon semifinal match at the Swanson Tennis Center. Both Gustavus and Claremont are guaranteed to play again on Sunday. The winner will play in the championship match, while the loser will play for third place. Both of those matches will begin at 9 a.m. Sunday morning. No. 1 Emory will face No. 7 UC-Santa Cruz in the other semifinal.