ITHACA, N.Y. -- The Cornell men's tennis team could not pull off the comeback as it fell to Penn on Saturday, 4-3, in the semifinals of the 2024 ECAC Indoor Championships from the Hamlin/Hecht Tennis Centers. Saturday's loss makes it the second straight season the Big Red has been knocked out of the chance for the championship in the tournament after losing 4-1 to Harvard in the 2023 championships hosted by Dartmouth.
The Quakers came out with a fire in doubles, as Aaron Sandler/Kian Vakili made quick work of Adit Sinha and Nathan Mao in a 6-1 decision, putting the pressure on the Big Red to keep its chance for the point alive. Samuel Paquette and Petar Teodorovic battled hard against Matthew Rutter and Baylor Sai at the No. 3 position but could not get the job done, falling 6-3 to give Penn a 1-0 lead heading into singles action.
Penn would earn the first point of singles at the No. 2 position as Vakili took down Sinha in straight sets (6-1, 6-2) to inch two points closer to taking the match. Samuel Paquette would pick up Sinha's tough loss with a win in the No. 6 position, sweeping Luka Butera in separate 6-2 decisions to give Cornell its first point of the match. The momentum did not carry over to Bradley Paliska, as the senior fell behind 6-2 in the opening set and came up short in a back-and-forth battle in set two against Aaron Sandler to put the Quakers within one point of punching its ticket to Sunday's championship final.
Cornell did not go down without a fight, as the pendulum swung in its favor thanks to Petar Teodorovic (No. 4 singles) rallying from an opening set loss to take down Baylor Sai in three sets (4-6, 6-1, 6-3) and Radu Papoe also shaking off a 7-5 opening defeat to take a three-set decision (5-7, 6-4, 6-3) over Manfredi Graziani from the No. 1 singles spot to set up a winner-take-all battle between Nathan Mao and Matthew Rutter at No. 5 singles for the chance for Cornell to make it to the ECAC Championships for the first time since winning it all in Ithaca during the COVID-shortened 2020 spring season.
And despite the mojo being on the Big Red's side, Rutter took down Mao in a hard-fought straight-sets sweep that included a 6-2 tiebreaker in the second set to send the Quakers to the championship against fellow Ivy League foe Princeton.
With its loss to Penn, Cornell will play for a chance at third place on Sunday afternoon when it battles another conference foe in Yale beginning at 3 p.m. Yale will be looking for some revenge after dropping a heartbreaking 4-3 decision to Princeton on Saturday evening.
