In only the second week of the new tennis season, the Red will have the opportunity to compete against some of the top teams in the country in the ECAC/Ivy League Challenge. The men’s team heads out to New Haven, Conn., while the women make their way to Cambridge, Mass., for the same competition.
In week one, both the men’s and women’s teams earned splits to start the season at 1-1. The women’s team was handed an early defeat, 5-2, at the hands of Buffalo; however, Cornell bounced back on Tuesday with a strong 7-0 shutout of Colgate at the Reis Tennis Center. On the men’s side the story wasn’t much different, as the Red picked up an early morning victory on Saturday over Marist, 5-2, but was unable to sustain any of that momentum in a loss to Binghamton, 5-2, only a few hours later.
Head coach David Geatz suggested that the loss to Binghamton may have had something to do with the Red playing two matches in such a short period of time, all while he was watching the women play up in Buffalo, N.Y.
“I think … it was tough to play a doubleheader, and I wasn’t even there to watch them,” Geatz said.
Despite the loss, Geatz feels that if the team can get back to doing what it does best this weekend the road ahead will be much brighter.
“[We] always come to play … that made us good last year. We played great doubles and it would be great to get that back,” Geatz said.
While Geatz acknowledges that there are many impressive teams out there competing for the Ivy title, he has a high level of confidence in the Red’s ability to grind out every point and give the maximum effort in every match.
“I know we’ll get a great effort out of everyone, our guys never did check out of any matches,” Geatz said.
The road ahead is not much different for the women’s team, as this weekend’s tournament will also be a strong litmus test for them. The women will be given the opportunity to start fresh against their fellow ECAC members. The Red finished the 2008-09 campaign with five consecutive losses against ECAC foes.
Geatz took note of the team’s struggles against ECAC opponents, adding, “I understand Harvard is a very good team as well.”
Against such strong competition it is likely that this weekend’s competition will be very telling for the Red, as Geatz and his players look to gauge where they stand in the conference.
After this weekend’s event, the Red returns home to the Reis Tennis Center with the men taking on Buffalo and Fairleigh Dickinson, while the women face off against Binghamton and Rutgers.
Original Author: Evan Rich