Silviu Tanasoiu<\/a>, the Savitt-Weiss Head Coach of Men\u2019s Tennis. \u201cWe weren\u2019t sure how the guys would respond to our vision. But they have responded in the best way possible.\u201d<\/p>\nThe win over Columbia, at Cornell\u2019s Reis Tennis Center, lifted the Big Red to an 18-3 overall record, with wins over strong programs such as Purdue, Louisville and Pennsylvania. The team last won the Ivy title in 2017, also under Tanasoiu.<\/p>\n
Tanasoiu credits the leadership of his veteran players, particularly captain Aman Sharma \u201926, for this season\u2019s success.<\/p>\n
\u201cAman has been a phenomenal example both on and off the court,\u201d Tanasoiu said. \u201cHe\u2019s nudged the players in the right direction in every conversation he\u2019s had with them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sharma, who features at fourth singles this season, said losing four seniors prompted the team to enter this year with a fresh mindset.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone bought into the process of improving and listening,\u201d said Sharma, a real estate and finance major in the Nolan School of Hotel Administration in the SC Johnson College of Business, from Locust Valley, New York. \u201cWe all improved physically as tennis players but also mentally with our self-awareness.\u201d<\/p>\n
Among the group of improved underclassmen is Rodrigo Fernandes \u201928. The engineering major in the Cornell Duffield College of Engineering, from Portugal, stepped into the No. 1 singles and doubles spots for the Big Red and has delivered consistently, finishing the regular season with a record of 23-10.<\/p>\n
\u201cRodrigo is about as special as it gets,\u201d Tanasoiu said. \u201cFor him to take the top spot in both singles and doubles while majoring in engineering, he\u2019s just an outstanding young man.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eric Verdes \u201927 prepares to hit a shot during his match at No. 2 singles during the Big Red\u2019s 4-3 victory over Columbia.<\/p>\n
But the biggest win was the Ivy League-clinching victory over Columbia\u2019s Michael Zheng, a two-time NCAA singles champion considered by many to be one of the best college tennis players ever. Fernandes outlasted Zheng, 7-6, (4) 6-7 (5), 6-3.<\/p>\n
\u201cI played [Zheng] two months ago so I knew what to expect,\u201d Fernandes said. \u201cI knew what I had to do to be able to beat him. I had to be focused on every single point.\u201d<\/p>\n
The growth of the Cornell men\u2019s program has accelerated rapidly under Tanasoiu\u2019s stewardship. Now in his 15th season, the Romanian-born coach and former University of Oklahoma standout has built a consistent winner: The Big Red has finished below .500 only once under Tanasoiu.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mission was to create a community and create a culture where the players felt they were playing for something much bigger than themselves,\u201d he said, \u201cand to find players who pursued excellence both on the court and with academics.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s thankful for the support the program also receives from alumni, who have dedicated time and considerable resources in developing a network that works for the players, both during their years in Ithaca and beyond.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve built a program here that we can all be very proud of,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Cornell and Arkansas will meet at 3 p.m. EDT on May 1; second-ranked TCU (21-5) and the University of Denver (18-5) meet at 6 in the other first-round match. The winners will meet at 5 p.m. May 2, with that winner advancing to the super-regionals, May 8-9.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Coming off its third straight appearance in the NCAA Men\u2019s Tennis Tournament, Cornell faced considerable uncertainty entering the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":616758,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-616757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}