Three days into the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Northeast Regional, three Cornellians remain alive, and will hope to take advantage of homecourt when the quarterfinals begin tomorrow.
Sixteenth-seeded senior Zach Gallin is the lone Red representative still alive in the main singles draw after yesterday’s play. He won both of his matches yesterday, defeating Columbia’s Rohan Saika, 7-6(5), 7-6(7), in the third round, before rolling over Binghamton’s Dan Hanegby, 6-0, 6-3, in the round of 16.
“Zach had a really tough match this morning,” said Cornell head coach Barry Schoonmaker. “He played well enough on the big points to get through, though. In the second match, he played great.”
On the doubles side, the third-ranked doubles team of Josh Raff and Nic Brunner dispatched the Boston College pair of Justin Slattery and Chris McCoy, 8-6, in yesterday’s third round match. The pair will play No. 5 Penn State pair Barry and Scatliffe in the quarterfinals this morning at 9:30 a.m.
Elsewhere in the doubles draw yesterday, Gallin and senior Scott Spencer fell in a tough proset, 9-8 (5), to No. 8 Brown team Goddard and Pasanen.
“Zach and Scott played a heartbreaking, tough match today,” Schoonmaker said.
Other day three highlights included two upsets in the main singles draw. No. 13 Reed Hagmann of Colgate continued his impressive run of the weekend, ousting No. 1 Andreas Laulund of Virginia Tech in straight sets, 6-3, 7-6(1). In addition, Virginia Tech’s 17th-seeded Angel Diankov beat No. 12 Nick Goldberg of Brown, 6-4, 7-5.
Overall, the tournament has not been much of a success for Cornell’s entrants. Out of six players in the singles draw, only Gallin advanced past the second round.
“We definitely didn’t play our best this weekend,” admitted Schoonmaker, who anticipates a change of fortune once the spring season begins. “It’s the most demanding schedule we’ve had since I’ve been here.”
The ITA regional tournament will conclude with the championship matches tomorrow. The winning doubles team and the singles finalists will advance to the ITA national championship, to be held next month. For Schoonmaker and the Red, though, the end of this week’s event will represent a major source of relief.
“[Hosting this tournament] is more work that I ever imagined,” Schoonmaker said. “On the other hand, it’s such a great opportunity to bring all these awesome players up to Cornell. It shows we’re really serious about tennis here.”
Archived article by Owen Bochner