Christian Liew and Shrikeshav Murugesan of UChicago Win ITA Central Region Doubles Title
The University of Chicago duo of Christian Liew and Shrikeshav Murugesan brought home the ITA Central Region Doubles title with a victory on Wednesday afternoon.
In an all-UChicago doubles final, Liew and Murugesan battled Heyang Li and Albert Mackey at the Stagg Courts with the Regional title and All-American honors on the line.
Liew and Murugesan jumped out to a big lead early with a pair of breaks of serve to take a 4-1 advantage. The duo would hold on for a 6-2 win in the first set. In the second set, each time held in the first four games, but Liew and Murugesan were able to win the final four games to take the match 6-2, 6-2.
The historic run for Li and Mackey came to an end with a runners-up finish. The duo is the first team seeded outside of the top-8 to make the Central Region doubles final since the UChicago duo of Charlie Pei and Joshua Xu made the finals in 2018. This was also the first time a single school had each of the two doubles finalists since 2018 when Pei and Xu took on Tyler Raclin and Jeremy Yuan.
This victory marks the fifth time in program history that the University of Chicago has won the ITA Region doubles title, and it is the second consecutive year that the Maroons earned the honor after Emil Grantcharov and Derek Hsieh won the title in 2024.