PRINCETON, N.J. -- The No. 30 Princeton Tigers men's tennis team (19-6, 3-0 Ivy) took the early momentum in a 4-1 win over No. 28 Cornell (15-5, 2-1 Ivy) on Sunday afternoon from the Lenz Tennis Center. With the loss, the Big Red's win streak fell after an impressive eight-straight matches.

Cornell tried to battle early in doubles, but Princeton took the first point with wins at the No. 1 and No. 3 positions. Nathan Mao and Adit Sinha did take an early 2-1 lead over No. 31 Filippos Astreinidis and Paul Inchauspe. But the duo could not keep the lead, as Mao and Sinha lost four consecutive sets before falling 6-3. Radu Papoe and Samuel Paquette were the last chance, going back and forth early against Sebastian Sec and Alan Kam. But Sec and Kam took a 3-2 lead and never gave it back, cruising to a 6-2 lead to put Princeton on the board and snap Papoe and Paquette's winning streak at six matches. 

The Big Red needed a spark early in singles, and they found it from Felipe Pinzon, as the freshman took a 6-4, 6-1 victory over Aleksandar Mitric to tie the match at one. Pinzon's win over Mitric was his 11th of the spring season and extended his winning streak to a team-high five matches. Cornell hoped the win by Pinzon would begin a massive comeback. However, the Tigers grabbed its chance and ran with it off the racket of Fnu Nidunjianzan, handing Adit Sinha his first loss since the 2024 ECAC Championships on Feb. 17 with a 6-2, 6-4 decision to go back up, 2-1. Princeton's train kept rolling into the No. 3 position, with Sebastian Sec gutting out a 7-6, 6-3 win over Petar Teodorovic to put the Tigers one win away from taking the match.

With three matches still going on, Cornell still had a chance to keep its winning streak alive. The focus turned to the lone ranked vs. ranked matchup between No. 13 Papoe and No. 39 Inchauspe. Inchauspe took a hard-earned first set by a 7-6 score, putting the pressure on Papoe. The junior for Cornell did not go down without a fight in the second, taking a 4-3 lead after falling behind early, 2-0. But Inchauspe rallied, winning the next three games to clinch the upset victory and hand Papoe just his third loss of the spring. 

Cornell's loss puts them in a tie for second place in the Ivy League with Princeton and Columbia, who snagged a 4-0 win over Penn on Sunday. Harvard is the lone undefeated Ivy League team at 3-0 with two weeks to go in the regular season.

UP NEXT
The Big Red returns home for its final two home matches of the 2024 spring season. Cornell hosts No. 12 Harvard on Saturday, April 13, before turning around to battle Dartmouth on Sunday, April 14. Both matches will begin at 1 p.m. It is also senior weekend, as the Big Red will celebrate the accomplishments of its four seniors (Muhammad Dossani, Matthew Druyanoff, Bradley Paliska, and Samuel Paquette) before Saturday's match against the Crimson.