NORMAN, Okla. -- The No. 57 ranked Cornell men's tennis battled hard but could not pull off the upset, falling 4-3 to No. 38 Oklahoma on Sunday from the Headington Family Tennis Center. Cornell drops to 6-3 overall, while Oklahoma improved to 8-2.
The match opened with a battle in doubles, as the tandems for Cornell saw some shuffling. Peter Teodorvic and
Eric Verdes paired up for the first time this spring, taking down Mark Mandlik and Khoto Montsi, 7-5, to put Cornell in position to take the opening point. Oklahoma countered at the No. 1 position, as Baptiste Anselmo and Alex Martinez handed
Adit Sinha and
Nathan Mao their third loss of the year (7-5) to set up a battle at No. 3 doubles for the first point of the evening. And in their first appearance together this spring,
Radu Papoe and
Samuel Paquette got the job done, taking a 7-5 tiebreaker to clinch the match (7-6, (7-5)) and push Cornell to a 1-0 lead.
Despite being down, Oklahoma roared back early in singles as Mandlik took down Paquette in straight sets (6-4, 6-1) to tie things at one. The shocker of the day came next in No. 1 singles, as the unseeded Martinez took down No. 17 Papoe in straight sets (7-6, (7-5), 6-1) to hand the junior his first loss of the spring and take its first lead of the match, 2-1.
Cornell tried to counter at No. 5 singles with Mao pairing up against Justin Schlageter but failed to pick up the point, as the junior dropped a 7-4 tiebreaker to lose the first set and could not recover in a straight sets loss.
With Oklahoma within one point of clinching the match, the attention turned to the No. 3 singles battle between Teodorovic and Montsi, looking to see if Cornell could start the comeback. Teodorovic fell short, falling 7-5, 7-5 to allow the Sooners to clinch the match.
Cornell kept fighting with No. 4 and No. 2 singles still in action. Freshman
Felipe Pinzon fed off his match-clinching win at last weekend's ECAC Championships against Penn and pulled off an upset, taking down No. 81 Luis Alvarez (7-5, 6-2) to snag his sixth-straight win of the spring. And in the longest match of the day, Sinha recovered from dropping the first set to complete a 3-6, 6-3, 6-3 victory over Jordan Hasson, giving the junior his second win in a row after winning another three-set thriller last weekend in Philadelphia.
UP NEXT
Cornell will stay on the road to close the month of February, traveling up to the Volunteer State to battle #26 Middle Tennessee on Tuesday, Feb. 27 at noon from the Adams Tennis Complex. The Blue Raiders are coming off a good weekend at the Blue Gray Championships, tallying a 2-1 record that included a 4-2 win over No. 49 Boise State and a 4-0 sweep of Rice on Saturday.
