FORT WORTH, Texas -- The No. 35-ranked Cornell men's tennis team saw its 2024 season end on Saturday afternoon, falling 4-0 to the TCU Horned Frogs from Bayard H. Friedman Tennis Center. Cornell, who finishes its season at 19-7 overall, falls in the second round of the NCAA Team Championships for the second consecutive season while TCU (24-4) moves on to the Super Regionals next weekend against No. 13 Duke.
The Horned Frogs took the first swing of the match by taking the doubles point. Sebastian Gorzny and Jack Pinnington earned a 6-3 victory from the No. 3 position over Radu Papoe / Samuel Paquette. The junior and senior duo finished their season at 10-6 as a pair. The focus shifted to the No. 2 battle between Duncan Chan / Lui Maxted and Petar Teodorovic and Eric Verdes to see if Cornell could stay alive. But Chan and Maxted took control early before cruising to a 6-3 decision to put TCU up by one heading into singles action. Teodorovic and Verdes, who joined up for the first time over three months ago against No. 38 Oklahoma, also earned a 10-6 final record as a duo.
Cornell looked to get back on the better side of things in singles, something it had dominated in Friday's match against Arkansas. TCU continued its role right out of the gate, with Tomas Jirousek earning a 6-3, 6-2 victory over Nathan Mao from the No. 5 spot. Jirousek's victory also snapped Mao's five-match winning streak dating back to a 6-3, 7-6 (7-0) win over Penn's Matthew Rutter on April 5 in Ithaca. Despite being down 2-0, the Big Red continued to fight as the Horned Frogs inched closer to clinching the match. A heated battle occurred in one of two ranked-vs-ranked matchups in the lineup from the top spot between No. 13 Jack Pinnington and No. 14 Radu Papoe. Pinnington cruised to a 6-1 victory in the first set and looked to keep the hammer down. Papoe did counter in the second set, taking a 5-3 lead, and was a point away from pushing the match to a decisive third. But the lead evaporated, as Pinnington battled back by winning four consecutive games to take the 6-1, 7-5 win and hand the junior his first loss since a 6-1, 6-3 decision to SMU's Trevor Svajda on March 2.
With the Horned Frogs a point away from clinching the match, Cornell needed a win and some help to stay alive and make its first Super Regionals appearance in program history. The Big Red crowd rallied behind Adit Sinha as the No. 103-ranked player matched up against TCU's top singles player in No. 7 Jake Fearnley. The match was a back-and-forth swing between both sides, as Sinha fought hard against the three-time ITA All-American. Fearnley would take the first set, 7-5, putting the pressure on Sinha to keep Cornell from going home. Sinha continued to fight back, eventually taking a 2-0 lead in the second set. But the juice ran out for the junior, as Fearnley stormed back to take the second set (6-4) and send the Horned Frogs to the Super Regionals for the fourth-straight season.
UP NEXT
Cornell will still have someone to cheer for, as Radu Papoe will represent the Big Red at the 2024 NCAA Singles Championships. Papoe will have about two weeks to prepare before jetting off for the championships hosted by Oklahoma State, which begins on Monday, March 20 from Greenwood Tennis Center. The junior, who earned a 9-16 seed in the tournament, is guaranteed all-american status no matter the result, making him the first Cornell men's tennis player in program history to earn the distinction.
