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Box Score 4 CAMBRIDGE, MA — Cornell took the ITA Division I New England Regional Championship title in both singles and doubles with Radu Papoe winning out the singles bracket and the duo of Rushil Khosla and Eric Verdes winning the doubles contest.
Papoe went into this tournament for the Big Red as the one seed in the main draw. He began by defeating Caleb Saltz from Boston College in a two set sweep (6-0,6-0). Papoe then moved on to the round of 32 where he had to face off against Yale's Jason Shuler. Papoe won that contest in two sets (6-1, 7-5). In the round of 16 Papoe faced Masato Perara from Harvard and won in two close sets (7-5, 7-5). In the quarter-final round of play Papoe met another Yale foe in Eric Li and defeated him in two sets (6-0, 7-5) to make the semi-final round. In the semis Papoe went against Harvard's Peter Benjamin Privara where the first set took a tie breaker to decide it and Papoe ultimately won in two sets (7-6(2), 6-1). This win brought Papoe to the ITA regional finals for men's singles where he was able to defeat Vignesh Gogineni to earn the regional championship title and qualify for the fall NCAA Division I Men's Singles and Doubles Tennis Championships.On the doubles side, Rushil Khosla and Eric Verdes took the title. The journey for them began with an 8-0 victory over Camilo Illanes and Will Donnelly from Holy Cross. In the round of 32 the duo played William O'Brien and Luca Benaibbouche from Fairfield and won 8-2. In the round of 16 the pair faced off against University at Buffalo's Theodoris Mistakos and Clement Mainguy and won 8-4 to move on to the quarter-finals. In the quarter-final round, Khosla and Verdes defeated Caleb Saltz and Liam O'Leary from Boston University 8-2. Then, in the semi finals match the duo was faced with more than familiar foes in teammates Adit Sinha and Nathan Mao whom they defeated in two sets (6-4, 6-2) to move on to the Ita regional finals for men's doubles. In the finals, they met yet another Big Red doubles pair in Radu Papoe and Rodrigo Fernandes but were able to finish them off in two sets (6-2, 7-5) to earn the regional championship and qualify for the fall NCAA Division I Men's Singles and Doubles Tennis Championships.
While Cornell won in both the singles and doubles categories, the tournament was a successful one for the Big Red squad overall, as they had two players in the singles semi-finals in Papoe and Adit Sinha. They also had three doubles teams in the semi-finals for that category with Khosla and Verdes, Papoe and Fernandes and Sinha and Mao.
Besides the singles and doubles players that made it to the semi-final round Cornell also had other athletes that competed in the tournament as well.
Petar Teodorovic, Aman Sharnma, Eric Verdes and Jack McCarthy made it to the round of 16 of the singles main draw before being eliminated. McCarthy lost to teammate Mao who was then eliminated in the quarter-final round right after. Khosla and Fernandes were both defeated in the round of 64 of the singles main draw and Noah Eisenberg had an early exit in the first round of the qualifying singles draw.
In doubles outside of the semi-finalists, Teodorovic and McCarthy fell in a tiebreaker battle in the round of 32 to Sam Feldman and James Lian of Brown.
For the two winners, Papoe and the doubles team of Khosla and Verdes, they will now be qualified to compete in the fall NCAA Division I Men's Singles and Doubles Tennis Championships from November 19 - November 24 at the Hurd Tennis Center in Waco, TX.
As for the team's next time out, the Big Red will be competing in its home opener tournament from Friday, Nov. 1 - Sunday, Nov. 3 at the Reis Tennis Center.
