NEW YORK – The women's tennis team brings a five-match winning streak into Ivy League play, when it kicks off the league slate with a noon Saturday match against Columbia at Dick Savitt Tennis Center.
 
Cornell (7-3) is coming off a midweek victory against Army, handing the Black Knights just their second loss in 18 matches this season. Freshman Marika Cusick has won six consecutive singles matches to push her season total to a team-high eight victories, tied with classmate Alexandra D'Ascenzo. Combined, the duo is 16-3 from the No. 2 and No. 3 positions, and sophomore Dena Tanenbaum is 6-4 from the top spot.
 
Cusick and D'Ascenzo are also 5-1 at the No. 1 doubles spot. But it's D'Ascenzo and Tanenbaum who are currently ranked 51st in the country by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association in doubles, by virtue of a trip to the A Bracket finals of Penn's Cissie Leary Invitational in September. The Big Red tandem defeated Columbia's Tina Jiang and Crystal Leung (now ranked 30th) in the semifinals before losing in the finals against the Lions' Bianca Sanon and Kanika Vaidya (now ranked 14th).
 
As a team, Columbia (11-2) is ranked 33rd in the country and is expected to compete for the Ivy League title. Vaidya is ranked 71st in the country in singles, primarily competing from the No. 1 position. Sanon is undefeated (4-0) from the No. 2 spot, and Jiang is undefeated (6-0) from No. 3.
 
Cornell leads the all-time series against Columbia, 19-16, though the Lions won last year's matchup at Reis Tennis Center by a 7-0 score. Both teams were nationally ranked at the time, and the loss was Cornell's first in 12 matches during the 2012-13 season. The Big Red was the final Division I team in the country to suffer a loss.