ITHACA, N.Y. -- It was a successful Sunday at the Reis Tennis Center for the Cornell men's tennis team, as it swept both of its matches to end its opening weekend of the spring season undefeated.

Cornell handed the St. John's Red Storm its first loss of the year in a 6-1 victory before turning around and defeating the Le Moyne Dolphins for the first time in program history in another 6-1 decision.

With Sunday's victories over the Red Storm and the Dolphins, Cornell has  started 3-0 or better in three straight seasons under head coach Silviu Tanasoiu.

ST JOHNS RECAP

Sunday's match between the Big Red and the Red Storm started with some fireworks in doubles, as all three matches were a dogfight until the end. Adit Sinha and Nathan Mao teamed up for the first time this spring, as last season's All-Ivy second team selections took down the visitor's top doubles team in Francisco Bascon and Leonardo Mileikowsky with a 6-4 victory. Samuel Paquette and Petar Teodorovic battled with Martin Bugaj and Carl Gustavsson at No. 3 doubles. But the senior and junior combo pulled it out, defeating Bugaj and Gustavsson, 6-4, to earn the first team point in the match for Cornell.

The momentum from doubles carried over into the singles for both Sinha (No. 2) and Mao (No. 5), as the juniors each made quick work of their opponents to push Cornell ahead, 3-0. Teodorovic (No. 4 singles also picked up a straight-sets victory, defeating Ignacio Vinas, 6-2, 6-2, to clinch the team victory for Cornell. Freshman Eric Verdes followed suit with Teodorovic in the win column a couple of minutes later, defeating Ryota Kaneda to earn his third singles victory in the season-opening weekend for the Big Red.

However, the final two singles matches of the day were back-and-forth battles between the Big Red and the Red Storm. The No. 1 singles match was an instant classic, as Papoe played from behind after losing the first set, 6-1. But the junior pulled off the comeback, defeating Bascon in three sets (1-6, 6-4, 10-5). Bradley Paliska had the final singles match on the day for the Big Red, losing 3-6, 4-6 to Carl Gustavsson, who moved to 4-0 on the year in singles with the victory over the senior and earned the lone point for the Red Storm on the day.

With Cornell's opening win on Sunday, the Big Red has now won 21 out of the last 22 matches against St. John's, including four straight in Ithaca.

LE MOYNE RECAP

The second match of the day started as smooth as a cucumber for the Big Red, as both duos of Papoe/Verdes and Paquette/Noah Eisenberg cruised with separate 6-2 and 6-1 decisions to nab the first point on the night for the home team.

Le Moyne earned the first point in singles, as Leon Grundstroem took home the victory after Paquette withdrew due to an injury. With the match now tied at one, Cornell turned up the heat, as Felipe Pinzon moved to 3-0 in his first spring season for Cornell with a 6-2, 6-0 win over Alvaro Nunez and Muhammad Dossani (No. 6 singles) earned his second singles victory of the year in a straight-sets sweep of Xavier Branagan. Paliska would clinch the team victory for the Big Red by getting the bad taste out of his mouth after dropping his singles match against St. John's by winning in straight sets over Luka Stojanovic. Noah Eisenberg also earned a victory from the No. 5 singles position with a 6-4, 6-4 win over Kacper Piekarek.

The highlight of the Big Red-Dolphins matchup came at No. 1 singles, as Aman Sharma and Peter Hatton would not give an inch over the first two sets, as each earned a 6-4 victory to set up a tiebreaking third set. And in the longest match of the spring season so far for the Big Red, Sharma got it done, winning the final set, 12-10, to finish off a 4-0 showing in the team's spring weekend opener and the first win over Le Moyne in program history, as the Dolphins bumped up to Division I and the Northeast Conference this past fall.

UP NEXT
The Big Red has almost a two-week break before returning to action on Friday, Feb. 9, when it heads to Louisville to battle the Cardinals at 5 p.m from the Bass-Rudd Tennis Center.