Indiana men’s tennis traveled to New York reeling from a top-25 foe

Indiana men’s tennis played the first of three matches on the road on Saturday the 24th against Cornell University. Despite the 7-0 final score line in favor of the Big Red, the game was closer than it appeared.

I thought it could have gone either way, head coach Jeremy Wurtzman said after the loss. There were a couple of matches that ended up in a wire.

The match started with a tough double point. Cornell opened with a win at No. 1 doubles. Senior Luka Vukovic and freshman Ekansh Kumar responded by winning at third doubles for Indiana.

“It was great to see them play so well against that kind of competition,” Wurtzman said of Vukovic and Kumar. They gave us a chance to win the doubles point.

Vukovic and Kumar won No. 3 doubles and are now 9-1 together this season.

The doubles point came in the match for 2nd place in doubles. Freshman tandem Sam Landau and Luc Boulier led 4-1 early in the match, but sophomore Radu Papoe and senior Vladislav Melnic battled back for Cornell to force a tiebreaker. In the end, the Cornell duo emerged victorious 7-5 in the semifinals to get the double point for their team.

It was a really tight and really competitive match, Wurtzman said. It fell short by one or two points.

Armed with a 1-0 lead after taking a double, the Big Red took that momentum into singles.

Cornell quickly took three singles points by winning Nos. 2, 4 and 5 singles in straight sets.

They started off strong in those matches, Wurtzman said. We dug ourselves into a hole we couldn’t get out of.

Those three wins gave the Big Red a 4-0 lead and sealed the win for Cornell.

Play continued at No. 1, No. 3 and No. 6. All three matches went to the third set, but again the Hoosiers couldn’t find a way to pull out a victory.

Cornell’s loss on Saturday was Indiana’s third loss of the season. With two more road games to play next weekend, the Hoosiers are currently 9-3 on the season.

“They’re good,” Wurtzman said of Cornell. It’s great to see us competing against a top team.

The Hoosiers return to the Northeast next weekend, playing against Princeton University on Friday and Yale University on Sunday.