Cornell tennis had a busy weekend as the men and women had two matches each, both against Harvard and Dartmouth. Playing against some of the top teams in the Ivy League, the Red went into its matches looking to make some noise early in the season.
The men’s team lost a hard-fought match to No. 39 Harvard, 5-2, on Friday. Battling through fatigue, the Red went on to defeat Dartmouth by a score of 5-2 the next day.
“We were hoping to go in and shock the league,” said Cornell head coach Barry Schoonmaker. “To go in on someone else’s court and pull out the win is huge in this league. We finally got over the hump and got a win. The team played tremendously.”
The Red opened up the match against Harvard by winning two of the three doubles matches to secure the first point of the match. Freshman Rory Heggie came away with the lone singles point for the Red. Against Dartmouth, sophomores Josh Raff and Dan Brous won in straight sets, and Heggie and classmate Tongle Yu also won matches.
The women played both matches at home this weekend, but that proved to be no advantage as they dropped a 6-1 decision to No. 18 Harvard, followed by 4-3 setback to Dartmouth.
“We were pretty disappointed, but we need to take that and build on it for the next four matches,” said senior captain Melissa Tu.
The Crimson swept the doubles flight and then won five out of the six singles matches. Sophomore Kasia Preneta managed the lone point for the Red at the No. 4 spot. Against the Green, the Red was able to secure the doubles point, it subsequently dropped four of the six singles matches. Preneta won her second singles match of the weekend, while Tu also posted a singles win.
Archived article by Jon Hausner
Sun Staff Writer