Silviu Tanasoiu enters his 16th season as the Director of Intercollegiate Tennis and the Savitt-Weiss Head Coach of Men's Tennis at Cornell as the winningest coach in program history. He has led the Big Red to two of its three Ivy League championships (2017 and 2026), five NCAA Team Championship appearances (2017, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026) and the program's first All-American. Entering 2026-27, he holds a 205-110 overall record and a 56-35 mark in Ivy League play.
The 2025-26 season was one of the finest in program history. After losing four of six starters from the previous spring, and having just two seniors on the roster, Cornell won 12 of its final 13 regular-season matches, eight of which came against ranked opponents. The Big Red went 6-1 in league play and shared the Ivy League title with Columbia. Cornell earned the league's automatic NCAA bid with a 4-3 victory over No. 22 Columbia at Reis Tennis Center, a match highlighted by then-sophomore Rodrigo Fernandes' three-set win over two-time NCAA singles champion Michael Zheng. Tanasoiu and assistant coach Marco Martizi were named Ivy League Coaching Staff of the Year, and Fernandes, ranked No. 62 nationally, earned unanimous first-team All-Ivy honors. In the NCAA Championships, Cornell won a match in the NCAA Tournament for a fourth consecutive year, edging No. 38 Arkansas, 4-3, in the first round at TCU before falling to second-ranked TCU to finish the year 19-4.
The 2026 tournament was Cornell's fourth straight NCAA appearance, and the Big Red has won its first-round match in each of those four years. It beat Arkansas twice (2024 and 2026), along with Auburn (2023) and Michigan (2025). The 2024 season produced a string of program firsts. Radu Papoe '25 became the first Big Red player in 24 years to be named Ivy League Player of the Year, then earned a spot in the NCAA Singles Championship to become the program's first All-American. Cornell went 19-7 that year, including 7-3 against ranked opponents, and earned back-to-back at-large NCAA bids for the first time in program history. The Big Red beat Arkansas before falling to No. 4 TCU in the Fort Worth Regional final. In 2025, Cornell went 16-8 and earned a third straight at-large bid, sweeping Michigan, 4-0, in the first round in Austin before falling to No. 3 Texas. Papoe became the first player in program history to earn first-team All-Ivy honors three times.
Those recent runs built on the 2016-17 season, which changed the program. Cornell went 22-4 and finished ranked 26th nationally by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA). Its 6-1 Ivy record earned a three-way share of the league title, the program's first since 2011. The Big Red then received their first at-large NCAA bid and the No. 2 seed in the Baylor Regional, where they beat third-seeded Rice, 4-0, for the first NCAA tournament win in program history. Tanasoiu was named Ivy League Coach of the Year. The 2019-20 team looked headed for a similar run, going 9-2, winning the ECAC Indoor Championship and ranking in the ITA Top 25 before COVID-19 ended the season.
Cornell has produced a first-team All-Ivy singles player in seven consecutive Ivy seasons: David Volfson (2018), Alafia Ayeni (2019 and 2022), Papoe (2023, 2024 and 2025) and Fernandes (2026). Volfson '19 was the 2016 Ivy League Rookie of the Year, the ITA Northeast Region Rookie of the Year, and a first-team All-Ivy pick in both singles and doubles. Ayeni was the 2018 Ivy League Rookie of the Year. Lev Kazakov '20 was named the ITA Northeast Region Player to Watch after finishing ranked 98th nationally. Cornell has also reached the national stage in doubles. Eric Verdes and Rushil Khosla competed in the NCAA Doubles Championships in fall 2024, and Felipe Pinzon and Petar Teodorovic qualified in fall 2025 by winning the ITA New England Regional doubles title.
Tanasoiu came to Cornell after five years as an assistant coach at the University of Oklahoma (2006-11), where he was named the ITA Central Region Assistant Coach of the Year in 2010 and 2011. His recruits included 2010 All-Americans Andrei Daescu, who reached No. 10 nationally, and Costin Paval, who reached No. 62, along with Ionut Beleleu, who reached No. 50. In 2010, the Sooners reached the NCAA quarterfinals for the first time in program history. At Oklahoma, Tanasoiu introduced video analysis, sports psychology, nutrition education and tennis-specific conditioning. He also co-directed the OU/Nike summer tennis camps and directed the 2011 OU High-Performance Camp.
From 2004-06, he was the personal coach of professional Anda Perianu, who played in 11 Grand Slam events and reached No. 120 in the WTA rankings under his guidance. He also spent a year and a half as an assistant tennis professional at Cherry Valley Country Club on Long Island.
A native of Romania, Tanasoiu was the country's national junior champion in 1998 and 1999, and cracked the top 50 of the European junior rankings in 1999. He began his collegiate career at Louisiana Monroe before moving to Oklahoma, where he played three seasons and earned first-team All-Big 12 honors in 2003 and 2004. He was an ITA Academic All-American and a member of Leadership Scholars, the Dean's Honor Roll and the President's Honor Roll. He earned a bachelor's degree in psychology from Oklahoma in 2006, and a master of professional studies in behavioral economics from Cornell in 2021.
