MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Coming off a fourth-place finish at the ECAC Indoor Championships, the 59th-ranked men's tennis team will play its final invitational of the season this weekend at the Blue-Gray Invitational.
 
The tournament will feature a round-robin format in which Southeastern Conference teams will square off against non-SEC schools. The two teams with the best records through the final matches will play off in one doubles match to decide a champion.
 
The Big Red opens at 9:30 a.m. EST Friday against 15th-ranked Mississippi State, then takes on 14th-ranked Auburn at 9:30 a.m. Saturday. A time has not yet been determined for Sunday's match against 49th-ranked Alabama. All three of the Cornell's matches will be the first between the Big Red and its respective opponents.
 
Cornell (5-5) lost its last two matches following an opening-round victory over Columbia at the ECAC Indoor Championships. Sophomore Venkat Iyer won all three of his weekend matches at the No. 1 spot to improve to a team-best 7-3 on the season. Freshman Alex Sidney is 6-3, primarily at the No. 5 spot, and has paired with classmate Jason Luu to post a 7-2 record at No. 2 doubles. The Big Red has been ranked as high as 44th this season.
 
Mississippi State (6-2) is spearheaded by three seniors atop the lineup. Artem Ilyushin is ranked 71st in the nation and has been the team's primary No. 1. Louis Cant is ranked 83rd with a perfect 7-0 mark from the middle of the lineup, and 6-foot-6 George Coupland in the Bulldogs' highest-ranked player at 42nd with a four-match winning streak at the bottom at the No. 5 spot. Cant and Coupland team up in doubles, where they are ranked 20th in the country. The Bulldogs' lone losses this season have come to No. 2 Ohio State and No. 12 Texas A&M.
 
Auburn (7-2) returns seven of its 10 letter-winners from a 2011 season that ended in the second round of the NCAA tournament. Junior Andreas Mies is ranked 23rd in the country with a 4-1 record at the No. 1 spot after posting a team-best 23-2 record lower in the order last season. Senior Alex Stamchev, an All-SEC Second Teamer from last season, is 7-2 at No. 2. Together, Mies and Stamchev are the seventh-ranked doubles team in the country, but they've only competed together once since the fall. Freshman Lukas Ollert is 8-0 from the Nos. 4, 5 and 6 spots. Both of the Tigers' losses came last weekend at the ITA National Team Indoor Championships — Friday at No. 3 Virginia and Sunday vs. No. 11 Texas.
 
Alabama (3-3) is coming off a doubleheader victory at home against Furman and Troy. The Crimson Tide's other victory came against No. 54 UC-Irvine, while its losses were at the hands of No. 8 UCLA, No. 45 TCU and No. 57 Northwestern. Jarryd Botha is 4-2 at the No. 1 spot, and Ricky Doverspike has been the team's No. 2 entry. Alabama's two ranked players — Daniil Proskura (No. 117) and Vikram Reddy (No. 121) — fill out the middle of the lineup. Proskura and Carlos Taborga also hold the No. 43 ranking in doubles, though they have only competed together twice in the spring after posting a 13-4 mark in the fall.