ITHACA, N.Y. — The tennis teams kick off their respective 2012-13 seasons this weekend with tournament play. The women's tennis team is hosting the Cornell Fall Invitational from Sept. 14-16 at Reis Tennis Center, while the men's tennis team is hitting the road to compete in the Farnsworth Invitational, hosted by Princeton, over the same three-day stretch.
 
Both teams had the unique distinction of not losing a single player to graduation, meaning that the lion's share of significant contributors from a season ago return. Incoming freshmen also figure to have a significant impact, leading to optimism that both squads will move up the Ivy League standings.
 
The men's tennis team often ran out one of the youngest lineups in the country in 2011-12, often competing with one sophomore and five freshmen against a challenging non-league schedule before the always-demanding Ivy League slate. The results were understandably mixed, but the season ended on a strong note with three consecutive victories against Ivy foes Yale, Penn and Princeton. The late surge propelled the Big Red back into the national rankings, where it was tabbed 72nd by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association.
 
Fast forward to this season, and the Big Red adds two pieces to the puzzle with junior Alex Wilton, a transfer from Loyola Marymount, and Dragos Dima, a freshman from Romania who was recently ranked fifth among all newcomers to men's tennis by the Intercollegiate Tennis Federation. Junior Venkat Iyer and sophomore Sam Fleck both return after being named to the All-Ivy League Second Team, often competing in the Nos. 1 and 2 singles spots for the Big Red. Sophomore Quoc-Daniel Nguyen is back after leading the team with 14 singles victories in dual matches last season under Silviu Tanasoiu, now in his second season as the Director of Intercollegiate Tennis and Savitt-Weiss Head Coach of Men's Tennis.
 
The women's tennis team also has two All-Ivy League honorees returning in senior Sarah O'Neil and sophomore Lauren Frazier. O'Neil and Frazier earned All-Ivy first-team doubles honors after posting an 8-3 record from the No. 1 spot — including a 5-2 mark in league play. The pairing is ranked 52nd in the country in the ITF's preseason rankings, which is fourth among Ivy League schools. O'Neil was also named to the All-Ivy League Second Team for singles after going 8-10 as the Big Red's exclusive No. 1 player all season.
 
Mike Stevens returns for his third season as the Carl H. Meinig '31 Head Coach of Women's Tennis. All eight members of the team that saw action in dual matches last season are returning this year, including upperclassmen in the top half of the lineup (seniors O'Neil and Christine Ordway, and junior Ryann Young) and a trio of sophomores who competed in more than half of the Big Red's 2011-12 matches — Gabby Sullivan, Sara Perelman and Frazier.

On top of a strong group of incumbents, the squad also has adds freshmen Laila Judeh, Christy Kung, Lauren Michaels and Dena Tanenbaum — a group that was ranked 23rd among all recruiting classes in the nation by The Recruiting Network last winter.
 
Farnsworth/Princeton Invitational draw
Cornell Fall Invitational draw