ITHACA, N.Y. — The men's tennis team hits the road in its penultimate week of the regular season, looking to make up ground in the Ivy League title race when it takes on Dartmouth at 1 p.m. Saturday and Harvard at 1 p.m. Sunday. Both matches are scheduled to be broadcast on the
Ivy League Digital Network.
Cornell (17-3, 2-1 Ivy League) slipped one spot to 25th this week in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association after sweeping a pair of league matches last weekend against Princeton and Penn. The victories also kept the Big Red one match back of Columbia and Harvard (15-8, 3-0) in the Ivy League race with just four matches remaining for the current contenders. Freshman
Lev Kazakov remains in the ITA's national rankings for singles, currently tabbed 116th after a pair of victories from the No. 2 position last week. Freshman
Pietro Rimondini is also 2-0 in Ivy League singles matches, and he is also currently riding a nine-match winning streak that date back to January.
In doubles, the Big Red tandem of seniors
Colin Sinclair and
Chris Vrabel are ranked 78th nationally after a pair of impressive wins last weekend — including a 6-4 decision over a Princeton duo that was ranked 25th at the time. The matches marked the first time this season that Sinclair and Vrabel have competed together.
Dartmouth (9-11, 2-1) also swept its matches last weekend, earning matching 4-1 victories on Friday at home against Yale and Sunday at Brown. Charlie Broom is 12-3 in singles and has moved up to the No. 2 position recently. George Wall typically competes at No. 5 and has now won his last five matches to be played to completion. He's also won 10 straight in doubles, most recently paired with David Horneffer at No. 2. Broom and Max Fliegner have won seven straight at No. 3 doubles.
The Big Green holds a 45-22-2 advantage in the all-time series against Cornell, though the Big Red has won six of the last 10 meetings. Cornell's first Ivy League victory in 2015 was at Dartmouth, when used the doubles points and singles victories from the bottom four positions to lock down a 5-2 win at Boss Tennis Center in Hanover, N.H. The Big Green countered with a 4-2 win last year in Ithaca, which was the last of Cornell's two Ivy League losses on the season.
Harvard has won six straight. The only time over that stretch in which the Crimson didn't secure the doubles point was its last time out, though it responded by winning four singles matches in straight for its 18th consecutive victory against Yale. Jean Thirouin leads the team in singles victories with a 12-3 record from the top half of the lineup. Kenny Tao (10-6) has primarily competed at the No. 1 position, though he moved back to No. 2 against the Bulldogs with the return of Sebastian Beltrame. The Crimson sports a 43-17 cumulative record in doubles, with the tandem of Tao and Brian Yeung holding a 13-5 mark at No. 1 and a current national ranking of 74th.
Harvard leads the all-time series, 63-13, though five of those Cornell victories have come over the last 10 meetings. The Big Red earned a pair of 4-1 victories last year in the ECAC Indoor Championships (where the Crimson was the top seed) and in Ivy League play.
In addition to looking to make up ground in the Ivy League race, Cornell is also looking to cement its current position to be in line for an NCAA tournament at-large bid should it not win the league and be awarded the automatic bid. Cornell has never before earned an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament.
