ITHACA, N.Y. -- The Cornell men's tennis team will host a pair of the nation's best from the Volunteer State when it welcomes No. 59 Memphis and No. 43 Middle Tennessee to Reis Tennis Center this coming weekend. The Big Red will face Memphis on Friday, March 20 at 3 p.m. before battling the Blue Raiders on Sunday, March 22 at 11 a.m.
Cornell, ranked No. 34 in the latest ITA rankings, is 10-2 on the season with road wins over Louisville, Purdue and Old Dominion, home sweeps of Buffalo and St. John's and a strong third-pace finish at the ECAC Indoor Championships that included victories over Yale and Penn, the first of two victories this spring against the Quakers. The Big Red's two losses this season came against then-No. 12 Columbia at ECACs and a narrow 4-3 defeat to No. 52 Michigan at ITA Kick-Off Weekend. Cornell most recently picked up a hard-fought 4-2 win over No. 36 Penn on March 7 in The Bronx, N.Y.
Sophomore
Rodrigo Fernandes, ranked No. 80 nationally, is 18-7 on the season from the top spot. Both
Rethin Pranav Senthil Kumar (16-5) and
Felipe Pinzon (12-7) have also excelled in the top-half of the lineup. The doubles tandem of Senthil Kumar and
Rushil Khosla is 13-4 on the season and ranked No. 84 nationally, while the NCAA qualifying pair of Pinzon and Teodorovic is off to a 11-3 start. Fernandes and
Eric Verdes sit No. 46 nationally in doubles with an 8-2 record. Big Red head coach Silviu Tanasiou sports a 196-108 career record (.645) entering the weekend and has four NCAA tournament appearances with first-round wins each year.
Memphis, ranked No. 59 nationally under head coach Chris Doerr, is 7-9 on the season and is looking to snap a six-match losing streak - all coming against opponents ranked in the top 30 nationally. The Tigers are led at the top of the ladder by Maxine Dubouch (5-7) and Moritz Kudernatsch (4-6), while Marcos Castro-Frabra has a team-best seven victories while playing between two and four in the lineup. The Tigers own wins over both Harvard and Alabama this spring. Memphis has won all four previous matchups between the programs, the last a 4-0 Tigers sweep during the 2017-18 campaign.
No. 43 Middle Tennessee sports a 16-6 overall mark - including 14-2 at home - with wins over Harvard, Princeton, Rice, Utah and Louisville, among others. Head coach Jimmy Borendame's squad is led by the nationally-ranked doubles team of Ondrej Horak and Karim Al-Amin, who are 14-3 on the year. Al-Amin is 14-2 on the season while primarily playing at No. 2 singles, while Horak is 12-5 in the top slot. Cornell is 2-0 all-time against Middle Tennessee, including a 4-2 triumph on the road during the 2023-24 campaign.
