ITHACA, N.Y. – The Cornell men's tennis team returns from intersession to start dual play on Friday when it hosts a doubleheader at Reis Tennis Center. The Big Red takes on Drake at 5 p.m. that day, followed by a clash with Fordham at 8 p.m.
 
Alafia Ayeni highlighted the Big Red's fall competition by winning the singles title at the Intercollegiate Tennis Association's Northeast Regional Championships in October. By defeating Columbia's Max Westphal in the finals of that event, Ayeni earned a berth in the ITA National Fall Championships, where he defeated Kentucky's Gabriel Diallo before falling to Oklahoma's Mason's Beiler in the Round of 16.
 
Aside from regionals, the Big Red only competed at one other collegiate event during the fall – the Penn Invitational in September – with the bulk of top-tier individual competition taking place at ITF Futures tournaments. In collegiate matches, Ayeni was 7-1 during the fall. Radu Papoe advanced as far the Round of 16 in singles at regionals, while Adit Sinha made it to the Round of 32. In doubles, Ayeni and Melnic took their match in the finals all the way to a lengthy 14-12 tiebreaker before finally being ousted.
 
The dual matches will be Cornell's first since March 8, 2020, when the Big Red had a six-match winning streak halted by a 4-3 loss at Iowa. The Big Red was ranked 16th in the country at the time, and would sit on a 9-2 record until the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out the rest of the season and the entire 2020-21 campaign.
 
The ITA's Preseason Top 25 Coaches Poll was released on Jan. 5 and while the Big Red did not make that particular number, it did receive votes from some of the pollsters. In the final national singles rankings of the fall semester (Dec. 8), Ayeni came in at 18th.
 
Drake will make its dual debut after a variety of fall and ITA/UTR events. The Bulldogs were 7-7 in 2020-21, culminated by a Summit League Tournament loss to Omaha. Cornell and Drake last met on March 6, 2020 in Iowa, when the Big Red secured a 4-1 victory.
 
Fordham will be back in action for the first time since the fall, though it did record a pair of dual-match victories in October against Wagner (7-0) and Adelphi (5-2).