ITHACA, N.Y. — The men's tennis team hits the road for a busy weekend in the Midwest, where it will play three matches in three days in two different states. The Big Red starts in the Hawkeye State to take on Iowa at 5 p.m. CST Friday, then it challenges Oregon in a neutral-site match at noon local time Saturday. The trip concludes with a trip to Wisconsin, where Cornell tangles with the host Badgers at 11 a.m. CST Sunday.
 
Cornell (3-5) played three matches in three days its last time out, finishing in fourth place at the ECAC Indoor Championships, held Feb. 16-18 at Yale's Cullman-Heyman Tennis Center. The Big Red started off with a 4-1 victory over Penn in the quarterfinals before losses of 4-1 to Harvard and 4-3 to Princeton.
 
Sophomore Lev Kazakov was the only member of the Big Red to go undefeated in singles matches at ECACs, defeating opponent from Penn and Princeton at the No. 3 spot. Sophomore Pietro Rimondini (No. 5) and senior Daniel Grunberger (No. 4) each won two of their three respective singles matches on the weekend, with Grunberger now leading the team with six singles victories in dual matches. Senior David Volfson is 2-3 from the top spot and ranked 124th in the country by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association.
 
Iowa (6-5) has moved into the national rankings this week at 42nd on the heels of a 4-3 road victory over then-No. 14 Dartmouth last Saturday. The Big Green was the highest-ranked team in program history that Iowa has ever defeated, extending the Hawkeyes' winning streak to five matches in the process. Senior Josh Silverstein (No. 1) and freshman Will Davies (No. 6) rallied for three-set victories to cap the victory. Davies is a team-best 7-3 in dual singles matches from the bottom half of the order, and Kareem Allaf is 6-4 from the top. Iowa has won the doubles point in nine of its 11 matches so far. Cornell is 2-2 all-time against, including a win in 2015 and a loss in 2016.
 
Oregon (8-2) is ranked 40th, having posted 4-0 victories against Northern Arizona and Gonzaga last Saturday. It gave the Ducks five straight victories, with the squads only losses coming against Stanford and California during ITA Kick-Off Weekend in late January. Thomas Laurent is 6-1 from the top singles position, where he is ranked 13th in the country. He also teams with Cormac Clissold to comprise the nation's 16th-ranked doubles pairing. Clissold and Ty Gentry are a combined 13-0 in singles, and the Ducks as a team are 13-0 from the Nos. 5 and 6 singles positions. Cornell has faced Oregon just once before in another neutral-site match, coming up on the short end of a 5-4 decision on March 22, 1990 on Hilton Head Island, S.C.
 
Wisconsin (6-6) split a pair of matches last weekend, starting off with a 6-1 victory over Penn last Friday before a 4-3 loss to Middle Tennessee on Sunday. Josef Dodridge (6-3) is ranked 106th in singles, though he competes as low as No. 3 in the order before Chema Carranza and Lamar Remy. The Badgers are a combined 17-5 from the middle two positions in the order, and Daniel Soyfer is a perfect 11-0 in dual matches. Carranza and Dodridge are also a perfect 4-0 from No. 1 doubles, where they are the fourth-ranked tandem in the country. They advanced all the way to the doubles semifinals of the ITA Fall National Championships earlier this year. Cornell and Wisconsin have met just once before, with Kazakov and Rimondini both winning singles matches in a 4-3 Big Red victory on Feb. 26, 2017 at Reis Tennis Center.