Ohio State
NCAA Singles & Doubles Championships
Robert Cash & JJ Tracy – NCAA Doubles Champions!
5/25/2024 4:54:00 PM | Men's Tennis
The moment you become an @NCAA Champion ??@OhioStateMTEN | @OhioStAthletics pic.twitter.com/ANlDju36Iu
— NCAA Tennis (@NCAATennis) May 25, 2024
STILLWATER, Okla. – For the second consecutive season, an Ohio State tandem has claimed the NCAA Doubles Championship as JJ Tracy and Robert Cash win a three-set match on Saturday to become the program’s third national championship duo.
The Buckeyes took down the Florida State team of Antoine Cornut-Chauvinc and Joshua Dous Karpenschif by a score of 5-7, 6-0, 10-6.
This was the third consecutive NCAA doubles championship appearance for an Ohio State pair. Cash and Matej Vocel fell in third-set super-breaker in 2022 while Andrew Lutschaunig and James Trotter won the title last year in Orlando.
Overall, this was the sixth NCAA doubles final appearance for Ohio State. Chase Buchanan and Blaz Rola won the program’s first title in 2012, Peter Kobelt and Kevin Metka finished runner-up in 2014 and Mikael Torpegaard and Martin Joyce then finished runner-up in 2018.
In the first set on Saturday, neither team was able to get a break until the end of the set when Cornut-Chauvinc and Dous Karpenschif broke to win the set 7-5. The Buckeyes responded by breaking FSU in its first two service games of the second set and raced to a 4-0 lead. Another break on a deuce point and a hold and the Buckeyes took the second set 6-0.
In the super-breaker, the Buckeyes won both points on FSU’s first serve and raced out to a 4-1 lead. They held that edge throughout, not allowing FSU any chance of a comeback. Fittingly, the championship point came on a volley at the net by Cash, who is arguably one of the best doubles players in program history.
Cash and Tracy had a dominant start to the tournament. They beat SMU’s Huntley Allen and Adam Neff 6-4, 6-2 in Tuesday’s opening round and then rolled Auburn’s duo of Raul Dobai and Finn Murgett 6-2, 6-2 on Wednesday.
In Thursday’s quarterfinals, they took the opening set 6-3 from Arkansas’ Bozo Barun and Jared Horwood and then easily won the second set 6-1. Friday’s semifinal match was a back-and-forth battle with the Louisville duo of Natan Rodrigues and Etienne Donnet. Cash and Tracy won the opening set 6-2 but Louisville came back to win the second 6-4. In the super-tiebreaker, the teams traded mini breaks with the Buckeyes winning 12-10 in the end.
Both Cash and Tracy capped tremendous careers on Saturday. For Cash, he finishes with the most doubles wins in program history, 148. He passed the previous record of 139 earlier this spring and finished the year with an overall doubles mark of 35-7. The fifth-year senior from New Albany, Ohio was also a career-best 25-4 this season in singles and finishes his career with 228 career wins, which is top 10 in program history.
Tracy had a remarkable final season, finishing with a combined 77-12 record this year. He earned singles All-America honors for the second time in his career, reaching the quarterfinals. The Powell, Ohio native finishes his career with 235 career victories, fifth-most in program history.
#GoBucks
