Men’s Tennis

The college careers of one of the most successful classes in Northwestern history came to its full conclusion in the second round of the NCAA Singles Tournament on Thursday.

Following a tight loss by senior Konrad Zieba in the first round, fellow senior Strong Kirchheimer fell in the second round to No. 3 seed Petros Chrysochos of Wake Forest. That pair and senior Sam Shropshire are all set to graduate after leading the team for the past four years.

Zieba qualified for the tournament as an alternate, and the No. 67 player in the country was matched up with No. 51 Josh Hagar of Notre Dame in the first round. The two split the opening sets and headed to a decisive third. The back-and-forth set ended with a tiebreaker that Zieba lost 7-3.

The No. 37 Kirchheimer was matched up with No. 49 Gabriel Friedrich of South Carolina. Kirchheimer played a similarly tight match, but secured a 7-5, 5-7, 6-4 victory.

The win on Wednesday was the 107th singles win of his career, moving him into a tie for second in program history. He will also finish second all time in winning percentage, having won 74.8 percent of his matches during his time in Evanston.

Kirchheimer then had a difficult second round draw against the No. 3 seed, in which he fell in a competitive match, 6-4, 6-2.

The Cats will go into the fall looking to fill the top three spots of their singles lineup as the historic era of Kirchheimer, Zieba and Shropshire comes to an end. Rising sophomore Dominik Starý is the highest ranked returning player for NU.

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