ITHACA, N.Y. – The men's tennis team will have its final tune-up before the start of Ivy League season when it travels to Penn State for a 1 p.m. Sunday match in University Park, Pa.
Cornell (8-7) is coming off a seventh-place finish at the BNP Paribas Open Collegiate Tennis Challenge at Indian Wells Tennis Garden courts in California. The Big Red was defeated by a pair of top-20 teams in its first two matches before rolling to a 4-0 victory over Idaho in Sunday's finale. The win was preceded by a 4-0 setback to USC and a near-upset of Michigan, 4-3.
Senior
David Volfson, ranked 24th in national singles by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association, won a pair of singles matches in straight sets as he continues to work his way back into form following an injury-related absence.
Alafia Ayeni, who has been holding down the No. 1 singles position, improved to 5-4 after a victory against the Wolverines. He's now cracked the national rankings, now standing 113th. Juniors
Lev Kazakov (8-4, mostly No. 2) and
Daniel Soyfer (8-6, mostly No. 3) are tied for the team lead in singles victories, while Soyfer and senior
Jake Hansen are 7-2 from No. 2 doubles.
Penn State (8-5, 1-1 Big Ten), which opens the weekend with a Friday match against Michigan, is coming off a 7-0 victory over Michigan State last Saturday. The Nittany Lions are currently ranked 47th in the country, with the strength of the squad coming from even contributions across the three doubles positions and strong entries atop the singles lineup. Constant De La Bassetiere is 9-2 from the top spot, shooting up 57 spots to 44th in the national rankings after a victory over a then-No. 18 opponent from UCF on March 8. Christian Lakoseljac is a team-best 10-2 from the No. 2 position and currently ranked 116th. De La Bassetiere and Gabriel Nemeth are 7-4 in No. 1 doubles, ranked 11th in the country.
The Big Red is 28-12 all-time against the Nittany Lions, including a 4-2 victory last season. Three of the four meetings between the squads prior to that were decided by scores of 4-3.
Live stats of the match will be provided through Penn State's website. The password to access live stats is "psumten".
