ITHACA, N.Y. — The men's tennis team learned this week that its 8-1 start has vaulted it to No. 24 in the debut of this season's Intercollegiate Tennis Association computerized rankings — and that high national standing will continue to be put to the test this weekend. Cornell will host matches against Clemson, Wisconsin and Colgate this weekend at Reis Tennis Center, with two of its three opponents also among the top 50 in the country.
The Big Red is coming off a second-place finish at the ECAC Indoor Championships for a second straight year, having defeated Yale and host Princeton before losing to 18th-ranked and top-seeded Columbia in Sunday's championship match. The defeat ended a string of eight consecutive victories to start the season for the Big Red, which was its best start to dual-match play since it rattled off nine in a row to start the 2004 campaign.
Last weekend marked the return of sophomore
David Volfson, the reigning Ivy League and ITA Northeast Region Rookie of the Year. Seniors
Colin Sinclair (8-0) and
Bernardo Casares Rosa (7-0) remained undefeated in singles play this year, as the Big Red has taken 36 of 46 singles points through its nine matches. Senior
Chris Vrabel remains in the national rankings for singles this week at 115th.
Cornell starts the weekend at 3 p.m. Friday against Clemson (8-2), which is ranked 43rd by the ITA. The Tigers started the season with seven straight victories before back-to-back losses against Alabama and Old Dominion. Clemson then started ACC play on Sunday with a 4-3 victory at Miami. Alex Favrot is typically competes from the No. 1 position in both singles and doubles, and Robert Dudley and Brent Lett are on seven-match winning streaks in singles. The Big Red is 2-0 in its only two previous meetings with the Tigers, though those matches were way back in 1955 and 1956.
Wisconsin (5-1) is ranked 31st heading into its first match of the weekend on Saturday afternoon vs. Clemson (also at Reis Tennis Center). The Badgers then take on Cornell at 11 a.m. Sunday in its third match of the season against an Ivy League opponent — Wisconsin suffered a 4-3 loss to Penn on Feb. 11, then won by the same score the following day at Princeton. Josef Dodridge typically competes on the top of the lineup in singles and doubles, as he's ranked 18th in the Midwest Region by the ITA. He's also ranked seventh in doubles with Lamar Remy, though they haven't been competing together in dual matches — Remy has teamed with Chase Colton to go 6-0 from the No. 2 position. This marks the first-ever meeting between Cornell and Wisconsin.
The weekend concludes with a 4 p.m. Sunday match against Colgate (3-1), which opens the weekend at home against La Salle. Cornell is 55-16-3 all-time against Colgate, with Sunday's 75th all-time meeting between the programs marking the most for Cornell against a non-Ivy League opponent in its history, though the teams haven't clashed since 2013.
All of this weekend's matches are free to attend and open to the public.
