{"id":605710,"date":"2026-04-14T06:38:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T06:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/605710\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T06:38:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T06:38:09","slug":"mens-tennis-remains-winless-in-ivy-league-play-after-falling-to-cornell-and-columbia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/605710\/","title":{"rendered":"Men\u2019s tennis remains winless in Ivy League play after falling to Cornell and Columbia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last Friday, No. 37 men\u2019s tennis (14\u201310 overall, 0\u20135 Ivy League) fell to No. 33 Cornell (15\u20133, 3\u20131) 4\u20132 after a series of close matches. Then, on Sunday, Princeton was swept 4\u20130 by Columbia (14\u20136, 4\u20130). The losses were the Tigers\u2019 fourth and fifth in Ivy League play, and the Orange and Black remain winless in conference play.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI truly don\u2019t believe there is a more competitive sport on the national scale than men\u2019s tennis in the Ivy League,\u201d head coach Billy Pate told The Daily Princetonian. \u201cThis has been the case for several years, but right now, five teams [in the Ivy League] are in range for an NCAA bid. Any league match is going to be close and up for grabs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Men\u2019s tennis falls to Cornell 4\u20132\u00a0<\/p>\n

The match started off in favor of Princeton. At No. 1 doubles, junior Paul Inchauspe and senior Top Nidunjianzan obtained the first decisive result, with a 6\u20132 victory that concluded in the twenty-ninth minute. However, just two minutes later, Cornell struck back with a 6\u20133 victory at No. 3 doubles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The doubles point then hinged on the No. 2 matchup, where sophomore Meecah Bigun and junior Evan Wen were representing the Tigers. The pair reached a 6\u20135 advantage, but it unfortunately wasn\u2019t enough as Cornell rallied back to 7\u20136 to win the match and claim the doubles point.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had looks at No. 2 doubles, just missing on break points in two different games,\u201d Pate told the \u2018Prince.\u2019 \u201cI\u2019d like to think if we convert one of those we win the doubles point, and it likely leads to an overall match win. Again, it just further illustrates the thin margins [\u2026] it\u2019s simply a matter of having confidence in executing those conversion points.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the singles matches started, it was again the Tigers that had the advantage initially. First-year Jordan Reznik got the first decisive result at No. 6 singles, a straight set victory over Aman Sharma (6\u20133, 6\u20131). Shortly after, Inchauspe got a straight set victory of his own over Rodrigo Fernandes at No. 1 singles (6\u20134, 6\u20133) to briefly give Princeton the lead in the match. However, Cornell responded two minutes later, winning No. 3 singles (6\u20133, 6\u20134) to equalize the match at 2\u20132.<\/p>\n

The other courts were more closely contested. At No. 4 singles, junior Aleksandar Mitric lost the first set 6\u20133, but won the next 6\u20134 to even it up. Meanwhile, at No. 5 singles, sophomore Milan Markovits won his first set 6\u20133, but lost the next 6\u20133.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The situation at No. 2 singles was perhaps the highlight out of the three remaining courts. After Nidunjianzan won the first set 6\u20133, his opponent Petar Teodorovic claimed the first game of the second set. Nidunjianzan then equalized, and Teodorovic claimed the game after that. This pattern of trading games continued the whole set until the two were level at 6\u20136. Teodorovic claimed the decisive game to win the set 7\u20136, preventing a straight set victory by Nidunjianzan.<\/p>\n

Soon after, Cornell claimed the third set on No. 4 and No. 5 singles, giving them the match victory with a final score of 4\u20132.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew Cornell would be a down-to-wire match,\u201d Pate said. \u201cUltimately, it comes down to one or two points, and we simply need to convert those opportunities. Unfortunately, we didn\u2019t quite convert, and against a strong team like Cornell, it\u2019s going to be challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n

Columbia takes revenge, winning 4\u20130 against the Orange and Black<\/p>\n

Following the loss to Cornell, Princeton looked to right the ship. Unfortunately, the Tigers will have to search for their first Ivy League win against Yale this Saturday instead.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mirroring their loss to Cornell, Princeton once again lost the doubles points for the contest after the No. 2 and No. 3 matchups fell to Columbia. The No. 1 pairing, Inchauspe and Nidunjianzan, were locked in a 5\u20135 matchup against Columbia\u2019s Michael Zheng and Nicolas Kotzen, but after the No. 2 and No. 3 matchups finished, the doubles contest was already decided and the point for the day went to the Lions.<\/p>\n

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Princeton didn\u2019t fare that much better in singles. In an anticipated rematch between Inchauspe and Zheng, the Columbia senior got the best of his Princeton counterpart, winning two-out-of-three sets. After dropping the first set, Inchauspe stole the second, 6\u20133, before Zheng closed out the final frame 6\u20133 himself. The victory was revenge for Zheng; when they last met in February, it was Inchauspe who walked away with the win<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Losses for Mitric and Markovits in the No. 4 and No. 5 matchups, respectively, ended the day early for the Tigers. With those defeats, the Lions reached the needed four points on the day to bring the day to a close, leaving Nidunjianzan, Sec, and Reznik with unfinished matchups.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Princeton will face Yale (16\u20137, 3\u20132) at home on Saturday, April 18.<\/p>\n

James Li is a Sports contributor for the \u2018Prince.\u2019<\/p>\n

Doug Schwartz is a head Sports editor at the \u2018Prince.\u2019<\/p>\n

Please send any corrections to sports[at]dailyprincetonian.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last Friday, No. 37 men\u2019s tennis (14\u201310 overall, 0\u20135 Ivy League) fell to No. 33 Cornell (15\u20133, 3\u20131)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":605711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":{"0":"post-605710","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=605710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}