The first week of team competition is now in the books for the men’s tennis team after matches against Marist and Binghamton were completed over the weekend at the Reis Tennis Center. The Red (1-1, 0-0 Ivy) defeated Marist on Saturday, 5-2, before falling to Binghamton in the nightcap of the day’s events. Cornell defeated Marist (1-2, 1-0 MAAC) in six of the nine matches the two teams played to win its first event of the new season. A few hours later the Red was unable to duplicate that success, losing to a very tough Binghamton squad (5-0, 0-0 AEC), 5-2.
Junior Andy Gauthier acknowledged that the team’s loss to Binghamton might have had something to do with having to shake off the rust that comes with early season matches.
Gauthier and doubles partner junior Jeremy Feldman saw mixed results, losing to Sven Vloedgraven and Gilbert Wong of Binghamton, 8-6, and defeating the Marist duo of Christian Coley and Matt Himmelsbach, 9-7.
Despite the win against Marist, Gauthier acknowledged that this Red team did not showcase the best tennis it has to offer.
“Doubles didn’t go quite as well as we hoped. I don’t think we played our best … but Marist is a great team,” Gauthier said.
Feldman and Gauthier were the only doubles team to win against Marist, with juniors Jon Jaklitsch and Mirza Klis falling to the Van Eck/Pisecky team, 9-7, and seniors Ashish Bhandari and Jon Fife losing to the Sessagesimi/Greene duo, 8-6.
In the singles competition, the men’s team produced winning results in five of the six matches. Gauthier took down Christian Coley in a hard fought three-set match, 4-6, 7-5, 6-4, and Klis also won his match in the final set with a 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 win over Himmelsbach. Jaklitsch, Fife and Bhandari all won their matches in straight sets.
However, the same could not be said of the nightcap match-up against Binghamton. The Bearcats entered Saturday’s matches undefeated on the season, and remained untainted with a 5-2 win over the Red.
Jaklitsch won his second singles match of the day, this time against Alexandre Haggai, 4-6, 6-4, 10-6, and was joined in the winner’s circle by Feldman who defeated Bastian Bornkessel in straight sets, 6-2, 6-4.
Every other Red player fell in straight sets in the singles competition, with the exception of Fife who lost in a hard fought three-set match, 6-2, 3-6, 11-9.
In the doubles bracket the same problems continued to trouble the Red, as its only win came from Fife and sophomore partner Evan Bernstein in an 8-4 victory over Arnav Jain and Ruben Devos.
“I don’t think we were quite mentally prepared, and that’s obviously our fault,” Gauthier said.
The men were also scheduled to compete against Georgetown on Sunday, however the match never took place due to inclement weather.
A win also eluded the women’s team over the weekend, as it proved unable to produce a victory in a trip to Buffalo, N.Y. to take on the Bulls (2-0, 0-0 MAC). The Red (0-1, 0-0 Ivy) picked up wins in the fifth and sixth singles from senior Susan Sullivan and junior Ruxandra Dumitrescu. Sullivan shutout Tamara Markovic, 6-0, 6-0, while Dumitrescu won out in a close match against Diana Toia, 6-4, 7-6 (3).
Freshmen Christine Ordway and Kristin Lim, playing first and second singles, respectively, both lost in straight sets. Freshman Sarah O’Neil and senior Natalia Sanchez both fell in three sets.
Results were not much better in the doubles competition, which included losses from the No. 1 team of Sullivan and Sanchez and the No. 3 duo of Dumitrescu and Lim. The lone bright spot for the Red came from Ordway and O’Neil in their win over the Golenko/Subenkova team, 8-6.
The Red had the opportunity to come back from the loss to Buffalo against Colgate at the Reis Tennis Center yesterday, however results have not yet been made available.
Original Author: Evan Rich