ITHACA, N.Y. — Off to a quick 2-0 start in Ivy League play, the men's tennis team will look continue its recent roll with pivotal league matches against Penn and Princeton. Cornell visits Penn at 1 p.m. Friday before returning to Reis Tennis Center to host Princeton at 1 p.m. Sunday. The match against the Tigers will also serve as the team's Senior Day, in which the squad will commemorate the final home match in the careers of Jake Hansen and David Volfson.
 
Cornell (11-8, 2-0) is coming off a dominating home weekend in which it rolled to victories over Brown, Yale and Niagara by an aggregate score of 18-0. With the heart of the Ivy League schedule now on the door step, the Big Red is up to 60th in the TRN/Slam.Tennis rankings and 69th in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association rankings – which means a strong finish could leave the squad in the mix for an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament, should it fall short of winning its second Ivy League title in the last three years.
 
Having won four straight singles matches since returning from injury, Volfson (4-0) is currently ranked 34th in the nation in singles. Outside the eight from the Ivy League that have cracked the national top 125, junior Lev Kazakov (10-4) and sophomore Alafia Ayeni (7-4) are the next-highest ranked competitors in the Ivy League. In doubles, Volfson and junior Daniel Soyfer are ranked 40th in the nation after having recently been reunited to comprise the Big Red's No. 1 entry in the matches against Brown and Yale.
 
Penn (16-8, 0-3) enters Friday's match on a three-match losing streak, all against Ivy League foes. The Quakers opened the league slate with a 5-2 loss to Princeton on March 30, then it dropped a pair of matches at home last weekend to Harvard, 6-1, and Dartmouth, 5-2. Kyle Mautner, ranked 79th nationally in singles, won at the No. 1 positions in each of those contests to improve to 13-3 in dual matches. Dmitry Shatalin leads the team in victories with 15, primarily from the middle positions in the lineup, and Edoardo Graziani had 13 wins from primarily the No. 2 position.
 
Penn leads the all-time series, 47-41-1, dating back to the teams' first meeting in 1906, but Cornell has won 10 of the last 11 Ivy League meetings and 19 of the last 23 dating back to 1997. Four singles matches went to a third set in last season's Ivy League clash, with the Quakers winning the two at the middle positions to secure a 4-3 victory. The teams also met about two months ago in the first round of the ECAC Indoor Championships with Penn winning, 4-0 – though the Big Red was competing without two of its key contributors, Volfson and Ayeni.
 
Princeton (18-7, 2-1) has started Ancient Eight play with the aforementioned victory over Penn and another over visiting Dartmouth, 6-1 last Saturday, before suffering a 5-2 loss against Harvard on Sunday. The Tigers, now ranked 50th nationally, open this weekend against front-runner Columbia on Friday afternoon.
 
Karl Poling is ranked 97th nationally singles with a a lofty 21-1 record in dual matches from the top three positions. Ryan Seggerman and Davey Roberts are both 12-7 in singles, and Bill Duo is 11-8. In doubles, Seggerman is ranked nationally twice – 17th when paired with Payton Holden; 45th teamed with Damian Rodriguez. The Holden/Seggerman tandem shot up 59 spots in the national rankings this week after defeated a Harvard duo that was tabbed 33rd at the time.
 
Princeton holds a dominating 93-11-1 record against Cornell since the squads first met in 1906, but the Big Red has won nine of the last 15 meetings. The Tigers won a pair of tight 4-3 decisions last year, once in the ECAC Indoor Championships and another in the Big Red's Ivy League debut. Volfson (No. 1), senior Jake Hansen (No. 5) and junior Joseph McAllister (No. 6) accounted for Cornell's points with singles victories in the latter match.