Men’s Tennis Off to East Lansing for Weekend Tilt with #16 Michigan State
ITHACA, N.Y. — Another ranked foe stands in the way of Cornell men’s tennis this weekend as it heads to East Lansing to face off against No. 16 ranked Michigan State on Sunday, March 10. Doubles action will begin at noon, with live streaming of the match on Playsight. Live scoring will also be available here.
LAST TIME OUT: BIG RED SPLITS WEEKEND DOUBLEHEADER AGAINST SMU, HOBART
The Big Red last hit the court last Saturday for its first home matches since Jan. 28 against Southern Methodist University and Hobart College. Cornell fell to the Mustangs, 5-2, to open up the afternoon of competition before defeating the Statesmen, 5-2, to close the nightcap from the Reis Tennis Center.
Looking at the SMU match, Cornell fell behind the eight ball early, losing the doubles point after the Mustangs took victories at the No. 2 and No. 3 positions. SMU would earn the first point in singles in an upset, as Trevor Svadja handed Radu Papoe his second loss in the last three matches (6-1, 6-3) at the top spot to push the Mustangs up, 2-0. Junior Adit Sinha would counter, cruising to a straight-sets win over No. 97 Adam Neff to give Cornell its first point on the afternoon. SMU would punch its ticket to clinching the match right after, as Maks Silagy took down Felipe Pinzon (6-1, 7-5), and Liam Krall rallied after losing the second set, knocking off Petar Teodorovic in three (6-2 4-6, 6-2). Bradley Paliska would earn Cornell’s final point of the day at the No. 4 position, rallying from a 6-4 loss in the opener to defeat Eric Hadigian in three (4-6, 6-4, 10-6).
In the Hobart match, Cornell got things starting quickly by scooping up the doubles points with a 6-3 win from Adit Sinha and Nathan Mao at the No. 1 spot over Sean Pesin and Nick Fischer and a hard-fought 7-6 (7-5) rebound win for Verdes and Teodorovic against Troy Steiner and Hyat Oyer at No. 2 doubles. Sliding into doubles play, Papoe shook off his loss against SMU, sweeping Pesin (6-0, 6-2) to jump ahead, 2-0. Hobart earned its first point of the match with a 6-1, 6-3 victory for Nick Grosso over Matthew Druyanoff to make the match 2-1. Cornell put the hammer down after, with Eric Verdes (No. 2), Noah Eisenberg (No. 3), and Muhammad Dossani (No. 4) earning three consecutive straight-sets victories to take the victory.
ITA RANKINGS UPDATE
Despite its split on the weekend, the Big Red found themselves up to No. 46 in the latest ITA rankings after being No. 57 last week. The Ivy League is still well-represented in the poll, with seven of the eight slotted in this week’s rankings. Columbia leads the way at No. 6, followed by Harvard (No. 8), Princeton (No. 23), Penn (No. 44), Cornell, Yale (No. 55), and Dartmouth (No. 73). Ohio State and Texas Chrisitan University are still at the top of the rankings, followed by Virginia, Wake Forest, and the University of Kentucky.
On the individual side, RaduPapoe dipped down two spots but is still inside the top 20 at No. 19. He is the third-ranked Ivy League player in this week’s rankings behind Harvard’s Cooper Williams (No. 13) and Columbia’s Michael Zheng (No. 15).
INSIDER: MICHIGAN STATE
Sunday’s match will be the sixth time Cornell and Michigan State have faced off. The Spartans hold a 3-2 edge in the series, but Cornell has won each of the last two matches in convincing fashion in 2019 (4-0 in East Lansing) and 2020 (7-0 in Ithaca).
The Spartans come into the weekend as the No. 16 ranked team in Division I at 14-2 overall and are a perfect 7-0 in home matches this season. Michigan State’s two losses on the year have come to ranked opponents in Princeton (4-0) on February 24th and most recently to Arizona (4-1) to close out the Diablo College Tennis Invitational last Sunday in Tempe. Michigan’s lone point in the match against the Wildcats came from OzanBaris, as the then-No. 4 ranked Spartan swept Gustaf Strom (6-4, 6-2). Three Spartans are slotted in the ITA singles rankings this week. Baris slipped from 4th to 12th, while Ronnie Hohmann fell one spot to No. 20 after his three-set loss to nationally ranked Wildcat Colton Smith from the No. 1 spot (7-5, 5-7, 1-6) on Sunday. Max Sheldon finds himself in the rankings for the first time this season, sitting at No. 124. Sheldon has lost his last two singles matches but was on an eight-match winning streak before his losses this past weekend against Arizona State’s Roi Ginat and Arizona’s Casper Christensen.
On the doubles side, the Spartans have two of its doubles teams ranked this week. Sheldon and Baris come into the weekend at No. 7 overall and have a 10-3 record. Only one of those losses came in the spring season in a 7-6 (7-5) thriller against Princeton’s Paul Inchauspe and Filippos Astreinidis. Ronnie Hohmann and Sebastien Collard are the other tandem in the rankings, sitting at No. 79 with a 5-2 record.
UP NEXT
Cornell will return to Ithaca for its final doubleheader of 2024 on Sunday, March 17 against Quinnipiac (10 a.m.) and Penn State University (2 p.m.) from the Reis Tennis Center.
