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Cornell University Athletics

Christine Ordway
Dave Burbank/Cornell Athletics

Women’s Tennis Attempts to Set Program Record For Wins This Weekend

4/17/2013 2:41:00 PM

The women's tennis team will wrap up its season this weekend when it ends a three-game road stretch with a Friday match at No. 73 Princeton before returning home for a noon Sunday clash with Penn at Reis Tennis Center in Ithaca, N.Y. With one more victory, the Big Red will set a program records for wins in a spring season.
 
Cornell (13-3, 2-3 Ivy) split its road matches with Yale and Brown last weekend. After falling to the league-leading Bulldogs on Saturday, the Big Red rebounded with a dramatic 4-3 victory over Brown on Sunday afternoon. Sophomore Lauren Frazier and senior Sarah O'Neil won the final two singles matches of the day to complete Cornell's rally. Freshman Laila Judeh is on a three-match winning streak in No. 5 singles, and the doubles tandem of Frazier and junior Ryann Young is 3-1 in Ivy play.
 
On the strength of an 11-0 record in nonleague play this season, Cornell has tied the program records for victories in a season. The Big Red has won 13 on three other occasions — 1994 and 1996 under head coach Linda Myers, and 2001 under the direction of Angela Rudert. A pair of victories this weekend would also give Cornell a winning record in Ivy League play for the first time since 1996.

Princeton (11-6, 3-2 Ivy) is ranked 73rd in the country by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association after a rollercoaster weekend. The Tigers rallied to win the final three singles matches against Harvard on Sunday for a 4-3 victory to stay in Ivy League title contention, but then lost a deciding No. 1 singles match the following day in a 4-3 loss at Dartmouth.
 
Sophomore Lindsay Graff serves as the Tigers' primary No. 1 singles player with a 4-1 record in league tilts, second on the team only to freshman Emily Hahn's 5-0 mark from the lower portion of the ladder. Freshman Amanda Muliawan holds down the ITA's final singles ranking at No. 125, but she has not competed in Ivy League matches to date, leaving the No. 2 position to junior Katherine Flanigan.
 
Like Cornell, Penn (10-6, 2-3 Ivy) has won league matches against Brown and Dartmouth while dropping contests to Yale and Harvard. The Quakers kicked off the Ivy part of its schedule with a 6-1 loss to Princeton.
 
Sophomore Sol Eskenazi anchors the top of the singles order, posting a 12-3 record from the No. 1 position. Freshman Sonya Latycheva has the team's only other winning record in Ivy play with a 3-2 mark from the No. 3 spot. Together, Eskenazi and Latycheva are ranked No. 44 in the country in doubles and are 24-3 in matches covering both the fall and spring — including a sterling 5-0 mark in Ivy play.
 
The Big Red is just 4-28 all-time against the Quakers, but won 6-1 in the teams' last meeting at Penn in 2010. Cornell's losses to Penn in 2009 and 2011 were narrow 4-3 decisions, as was last year's 5-2 Quakers win. Princeton holds an even wider margin of victory in its series with Cornell, winning 30 of 32 meetings dating back to 1973. Those Big Red victories were in 1995 and 1996, which coincided with the best Ivy League finishes in program history. Cornell's 4-3 loss to the Tigers last season was the program's first since the ITA went to the current seven-point format in 2001.
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