PHILADELPHIA — The men's tennis team will return to action this weekend at the three-day ECAC Division I Men's Tennis Championship, hosted by Penn. Cornell is one of eight competing teams in the annual event, which features four nationally ranked teams. The tournament starts Friday and runs through Sunday.
 
Cornell (1-5) is seeded fourth and carries an Intercollegiate Tennis Association national ranking of 60th. The Big Red starts play at 8 a.m. Friday against fifth-seeded St. John's. Freshman David Voldson has won his last three matches played to completion from the No. 1 singles position. He is tied with senior Stefan Vinti for singles victories in dual matches so far, and junior Colin Sinclair is 2-2 from the Nos. 2-4 spots. Volfson and Sinclair have also accounted for two of the Big Red's three doubles victories to date. The Big Red last won the ECAC tournament in 2013, which was also the last time it was staged at Reis Tennis Center in Ithaca, N.Y.

St. John's is off to an 8-1 start, including victories last weekend over Fairleigh Dickinson, Youngstown State and Binghamton to extend its winning streak to seven matches. Seniors Lucas Hejhal and Vaidik Munshaw are 7-1 in doubles and ranked 49th in the country. Hejhal is also ranked 56th in singles, though he competes at the No. 2 position behind fellow senior Daniel Skripnik. The Big Red improved to 15-1 all-time against St. John's after a 6-1 victory last year, including a perfect 4-0 record in the tenure of Silviu Tanasoiu, the Director of Intercollegiate Tennis and Savitt-Weiss Head Coach of Men's Tennis. Five of the six singles matches went to three sets last year.
 
The winner of the Cornell-St. John's match will play at 3 p.m. Saturday against the winner of Friday's quarterfinal between Harvard and Yale, while the losers will clash at 9 a.m. The Crimson — the tournament's top seed — is tied for 32nd in the national rankings with North Carolina State. Harvard (6-3) split matches last weekend in Tennessee against #37 Memphis (6-1 loss) and #27 Vanderbilt (4-3 win). Unranked Yale (4-2) is seeded eighth, thought it is riding a four-match winning streak against Boston College, Monmouth, UMBC and Army West Point.
 
The Big Red will be scheduled to compete Sunday if it wins its first-round match against St. John's. Cornell would either play in the third-place match at 9 a.m. or the championship at noon. Other teams competing in the tournament are second-seeded and 34th-ranked Dartmouth, third-seeded and 45th-ranked Princeton, unranked sixth seeed Brown and unranked seventh seed Penn. The event is being hosted by Penn's Hecht Tennis Center after weather-related issues forced a relocation from Columbia's facilities.