ITHACA, N.Y. – After three difficult matches on the road against ranked teams over the last two weeks, the Cornell men's tennis returns home this weekend for a Sunday doubleheader against St. John's and Fordham at Reis Tennis Center. The match against the Red Storm will start at 1 p.m., while the Big Red and Rams are scheduled to square off at 5 p.m.
 
The 50th-ranked Big Red is coming off its first three losses of the season against No. 3 Ohio State, then-No. 28 Notre Dame and No. 51 North Carolina State — all away from its home confines. Cornell (2-3) started the team portion of its schedule with a pair of 7-0 victories against Buffalo and Boston College on Jan. 22 at Reis.
 
Sophmore Venkat Iyer is ranked 98th nationally and fourth in the Northeast Region, posting a 3-2 record at No. 1 singles so far. Freshmen Sam Fleck and Alex Sidney — who are also regionally ranked at 18th and 20th, respectively — are 3-1 in singles. Fleck and classmate Jason Luu are also 4-1 playing at the No. 2 doubles spot.
 
Play starts at 1 p.m. Sunday against St. John's (2-0), which commenced spring play last weekend with a pair of home victories over Division II opponents Concordia and Queens. The Red Storm posted a program-record 17 victories last season and placed fourth at the Big East Conference Championships under conference coach of the year Eric Rebhuhn.
 
Junior Vasko Mladenov, a transfer from Texas, is the top-ranked singles player in the Northeast Region and 29th nationally. Mladenov and senior Stefan Bojic also comprise the 54th-ranked doubles tandem in the country, while the pairing of senior Milo Hauk and sophomore Gustav Kallen rank sixth in the region. Hauk, a three-time All-Big East performer, is also ranked eighth regionally in singles.
 
Competitors from the Big Red and Red Storm have crossed paths in a pair of fall tournaments. Cornell freshmen Kyle Berman, Quoc-Daniel Nguyen and Sidney all won their respective singles matches, while Iyer dropped a pair of matches against Mladenov. The Red Storm won both doubles matches contested by the teams at Princeton's Farnsworth Invitational.
 
Fordham (6-1) has posted all of its victories in fall matches before opening the spring portion of the schedule with a 7-0 loss to Columbia on Jan. 28. The Rams are also set to visit NJIT on Thursday evening. Sophomore Kuba Kowalski, a transfer from San Diego State, has been the squad's regular at No. 1 singles. Sophomore Mischa Koran (a transfer from St. John's) and freshman Srikar Alla fill out the top of the lineup. The only meeting between the Big Red and Rams during the fall was a singles match in which Nguyen topped Koran in the first round of the USTA/ITA Northeast Regionals.
 
Including three fall matches, Cornell is 14-1 in its 75-year-old all-time series against St. John's. The Big Red has faced Fordham just once, winning a 7-0 decision to kick off the spring season on Jan. 22, 2011.