ITHACA, N.Y. — The women's tennis team will travel to Connecticut for its final road non-league match of the season when it takes on the Huskies at 11 a.m. Sunday at East Hartford Tennis Club.
 
The programs met for the first time last year, with Cornell holding on for a 4-3 victory in Ithaca. The Big Red won the doubles point and then the teams split the six singles matches with junior Priyanka Shah clinching for the Big Red with a three-set victory at the No. 5 position. Senior Alexandra D'Ascenzo won in both singles and doubles, and the Big Red handed the Huskies their first loss of the year.
 
This year, the teams enter Saturday's match with identical 4-4 records. Cornell split a rare Monday doubleheader, avenging a January loss to Wichita State with a 4-3 victory in the morning. While the Big Red does not appear in this week's Intercollegiate Tennis Association national rankings — which marks the season debut of the computer-determined Top 50 — Wichita State is now ranked 35th, despite the loss to Cornell. The Big Red later dropped a 7-0 decision to 27th-ranked Arkansas in the evening.
 
Connecticut is coming off a trip to Philadelphia that featured 4-3 losses to Drexel and Temple last weekend. Emma Alderman anchors the top spot in singles with a 4-4 record, and she teams with Yelyzaveta Pletnyeva to comprise the No. 1 doubles team. Pletnyeva has a team-best 7-1 record in singles from the No. 2 position, and she's won six consecutive matches. UConn is a combined 15-9 from the top three singles positions and 10-14 from the lower three spots.
 
For Cornell, Shah leads the team with a 5-1 record in singles — competing exclusively at the No. 3 position. She also is 5-2 in No. 2 doubles alongside sophomore Mariko Iinuma.