PRINCETON, N.J. — The men's tennis team won its seventh straight match on Friday afternoon, defeating Yale in a quarterfinal match at the ECAC Indoor Championships, 5-1.
 
With the victory, Cornell advances to take on either Princeton or Harvard in a semifinal at 3 p.m. Saturday at Princeton's Jadwin Gymnasium. The match will be streamed on Ivy League Digital Network, with a view on each of the match's six courts: http://www.ivyleaguedigitalnetwork.com/cornell/schedule?sid=TN&date=2017-02-17
 
Cornell, which is seeded second and has received votes for the Intercollegiate Tennis Association's Top 25 rankings,
continues to roll in its best start to a dual season since rattling off nine straight at the start of the 2004 campaign. The day started with Cornell securing the doubles point, clinched at the No. 3 position by senior Dylan Brown and freshman Lev Kazakov. The Big Red also won at No. 1, where senior Colin Sinclair played alongside sophomore David Volfson. The reigning Ivy League and ITA Northeast Region Rookie of the Year was making his dual-season debut.
 
The Big Red then fired a shot across bow to start singles play with four breaks in the opening games of the six matches. Junior Daniel Grunberger sailed through the first set at No. 4 without losing a game, then won the last three games of the second set to give Cornell a 2-0 lead.
 
Yale then got its lone point with a win at No. 2 before freshman Pietro Rimondini restored the Big Red's two-point lead with a straight-set victory at No. 5. Seniors Colin Sinclair (No. 3) and Bernardo Casares Rosa (No. 6) then wrapped up their matches at nearly the same time to bring the final score to 5-1.
 
Cornell will play the winner of Friday night's quarterfinals between third-seeded Princeton and sixth-seeded Harvard in the semifinals. In Friday's earlier quarterfinals, fifth-seeded Dartmouth topped fourth-seeded Penn, 4-1, and top-seeded and 19th-ranked Columbia rolled to a 4-0 victory over eighth-seeded St. John's. Sunday's third-place match is at 10 a.m., with the championships match following at 1 p.m.
 
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. Cornell finished second in last year's competition, defeating St. John's and Harvard before suffering a 5-1 loss to Princeton in the championship match.
 
CORNELL 5, YALE 1
Singles
1. Lev Kazakov (C) vs. Tyler Lu, DNF
2. Dylan King def. #114 Chris Vrabel, 6-3, 6-4
3. Colin Sinclair (C) def. Stefan Doehler, 6-3, 6-4
4. Daniel Grunberger (C) def. Ryan Cheng, 6-0, 6-4
5. Pietro Rimondini (C) def. Andrew Heller, 6-4, 6-2
6. Bernardo Casares Rosa (C) def. Dennis Wang, 6-1, 6-4
Doubles
1. Sinclair/David Volfson (C) def. Doehler/Alex Hagermoser, 6-4
2. Cheng/King (Y) def. Casares/Vrabel, 6-4
3. Dylan Brown/Kazakov (C) def. Lu/Photos Photiades, 6-4
Order of finish: Doubles (1,2,3), Singles (4,2,5,3/6)