HANOVER, N.H. — The Cornell men's tennis team continued its season-opening win streak on Friday afternoon with a 4-3 victory over Princeton to open the ECAC Indoor Championships.

Cornell opened the match with claiming the doubles point thanks to a pair of victories at the No. 2 and No. 3 positions. Sophomore Radu Papoe and senior Vladislav Melnic posted a 6-2 victory, while freshman Petar Teodorovic and junior Samuel Paquette were victorious in a tiebreak, 7-6 (3).

Sophomore Adit Sinha and Melnic recorded straight-set victories to give Cornell a three-point lead.

Sinha coasted in his match against Princeton's Sebastian Sec, 6-1, 6-4, and Melnic won 6-1, 7-5, over Will Peters.

Princeton added intrigue with victories at the No. 5, No. 6, and No. 3 positions to tie the match at 3-all.

Ellis Short and Matthew Bosancic had straight-set victories over sophomore Nathan Mao and freshman Aman Sharma, while Thomas Bosancic defeated Teodorovic in three sets, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.

Papoe, the No. 50-ranked singles player by the ITA, aided Cornell to the match victory with a three-set win over Fnu Nidunjianzan, 7-5, 2-6, 6-3.

Looking Ahead

Cornell, who entered the tournament as the No. 4 seed, will play top-seeded Harvard in the semifinals of the ECAC Indoor Championships at 3 p.m. on Saturday at the Boss Tennis Center.

This will be Cornell's third consecutive semifinal appearance at the ECAC Indoor Championships. The Big Red were champions in 2020 before being eliminated by Columbia, who was the No. 2 seed, in last year's semifinals.

Scouting Harvard

Harvard, who is currently ranked 14th nationally in the ITA rankings, posted a 4-0 victory over No. 8-seeded Brown on Friday morning. So far on the year, the Crimson have a 5-2 overall record with the losses coming to nationally-ranked opponents in #17 North Carolina and #4 Michigan.

In Friday's win over Brown, Harvard claimed the doubles point before logging three straight-set victories in singles to cruise to the victory.

Henry Schulenburg (No. 10) and Harris Walker (No. 13) are the Crimson's pair of players ranked in the top-15 of the ITA singles rankings. Harvard, along with Stanford, South Carolina, and Georgia are the lone four Division I programs with at least two players to rank in the top-15 in singles.

Along with the pair of top-15 singles players, Ronan Jachuck and Daniel Milavsky are ranked No. 35 nationally in doubles for the Crimson.

In the last meeting between Cornell and Harvard, the Crimson posted a 4-2 over the Big Red at the Reis Tennis Center on April 10, 2022.

It will be the first time the Ancient Eight programs are meeting at the ECAC Indoor Championships since 2020 when Cornell defeated Harvard, 4-1, to claim the championship.