ITHACA, N.Y. — The women's tennis team will look to keep its turnaround season alive this weekend, when it closes out the regular-season slate with a home match against Penn at 2 p.m. Friday at Reis Tennis Center, followed by a match that could have title Ivy League implications noon Sunday at Princeton.
 
Cornell (9-7, 3-2 Ivy League) has re-entered the Intercollegiate Tennis Association's national rankings this week, slipping into the 75th position after last weekend's victory at Brown and loss at Yale. Both matches were decided by a final score of 4-3, giving the Big Red having played four of its five league matches to the minimal margin of victory. Cornell enters this weekend sitting in a tie for second place with Columbia in the Ivy standings behind Princeton (11-7, 5-0). The Tigers, who are ranked 40th and have already locked up at least a share of its 12th league crown, can clinch the outright title with at least one victory this weekend — either Friday at Columbia or at home against Cornell on Sunday.
 
But if both 46th-ranked Columbia and Cornell sweep their weekend matches against Princeton and unranked Penn (8-8, 1-4), three or four teams will share the Ivy League crown. That would not only give the Big Red its first Ivy League title in program history, it would lead Cornell to win all of the prospective tiebreakers and give the team its first-ever NCAA tournament berth.
 
Sophomore Marika Cusick continues to be red hot for Cornell in singles, having won 10 consecutive matches — including a perfect 5-0 mark from the No. 3 position in Ivy League play. Furthermore, she's needed a third set to close out an opponent in just one of those 10 matches. Junior Jane Stewart, sophomore Alexandra D'Ascenzo, and freshmen Lizzie Stewart and Priyanka Shah all have two singles victories apiece in Ivy play.
 
The Big Red has won the doubles point in all five of its Ivy matches to date. Shah and Lizzie Stewart are a perfect 5-0 over that stretch from the No. 2 spot, and the No. 1 tandem of D'Ascenzo and junior captain Dena Tanenbaum has won three straight matches.
 
Penn won its first Ivy match of the season last Saturday at Harvard before suffering a 4-3 loss Sunday at Dartmouth. Senior Sol Eskenazi is 6-6 from the No. 1 position in singles. Freshman Ria Vaidya has a team-best 3-2 Ivy record from No. 5 singles, having won both of her matches last weekend. The Big Red is just 5-29 all-time against the Quakers, but the field has been leveled in recent years. Cornell won the last time the teams met at Penn in 2013, 4-3, to record its program-record 14th victory of that season. The Big Red also won the 2010 clash at Penn, 6-1.
 
Princeton has won 11 of its last 13 matches and 12 straight Ivy League matches, dating back to 2014. Lindsay Graff is 12-6 from the No. 1 singles position, and she is 8-4 when paired with Alanna Wolff at No. 1 doubles. The No. 2 doubles team of Amanda Muliawan and Dorothy Tang is 4-0 in Ivy play. Muliawan is 10-7 from No. 2 singles, and Wolff is 6-10 from the No. 3 spot. The Tigers have won 33 of 35 all-time meetings with the Big Red dating back to 1973. Those Cornell victories were in 1995 and 1996, which coincided with the best Ivy League finishes in program history. Princeton earned a non-league victory over Cornell on Feb. 8 at the ECAC Indoor Championships.
 
Friday's match at Reis Tennis Center is free to attend and open to the public. Sunday's match at Princeton will serve as the inaugural Cornell Women's Tennis Alumni Day. There will be a meet-and-greet with the players after the match.