PHILADELPHIA — Juniors Bernardo Casares Rosa and Chris Vrabel teamed up to win the No. 2 doubles match, then both went on to win close matches in singles to power the men's tennis team to an upset of top-seeded Harvard, 4-1, in Saturday's semifinals of the ECAC Indoor Championships at Hecht Tennis Center.
 
Cornell (3-5), ranked 60th nationally by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association and the tournament's fourth seed, took down the nation's 32nd-ranked team to set up a noon Sunday championship match against either Princeton or Penn. Those two teams were set to play the other semifinal Saturday afternoon.
 
The day started with the Big Red winning the Nos. 1 and 2 doubles matches, just as it did in Friday's first-round victory over St. John's. Casares Rosa and Vrabel won by the same 6-4 margin that the top pairing of junior Colin Sinclair and freshman David Volfson had, staking Cornell to an early 1-0 lead.
 
Volfson went on to win the No. 1 singles match in straight sets for his fifth conseuctive victory on the young season, and Vrabel rallied to win 7-5 in the third set of his own match at No. 4. With Harvard (7-4) on the board with a win at No. 6 and ahead in the third set of the other remaining matches, Casares Rosa outlasted his opponent in a lengthy tiebreaker at No. 3 before wrapping up the win in the second set to lift Cornell to the championship match.
 
The win is Cornell's first in its last five matches against Harvard, with that last victory coming in similar fashion. When the Big Red hosted the ECACs in 2013, it defeated top-seeded Harvard in the semifinals before going on to win the title match against Columbia.
 
#60 CORNELL 4, #32 HARVARD 1
Singles
1. David Volfson (C) def. Nicky Hu, 7-6(5), 6-1
2. Colin Sinclair (C) vs. Sebastian Beltrame, DNF (7-6, 6-7, 2-4)
3. Bernardo Casares Rosa (C) def. Brian Yeung, 7-6(8), 6-3
4. Chris Vrabel (C) def. Kenny Tao, 3-6, 6-3, 7-5
5. Karlo Lozic (C) vs. Andy Zhou, DNF (6-3, 6-7, 2-4)
6. Kelvin Lam (H) def. Karim Arem, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3
Doubles
1. Sinclair/Volfson (C) def. Hu/Yeung, 6-4
2. Casares Rosa/Vrabel (C) def. Beltrame/Tao, 6-4
3. Conor Haughey/Lam (H) def. Arem/Lozic, 6-3