Penn men's tennis finishes winless in Ivy play

Well, there’s always next year.

Penn men’s tennis dropped its final two Ivy League matches over the weekend against No. 48 Cornell and No. 23 Columbia, completing a winless Ivy campaign. The Quakers have now gone winless in their past 12 Ivy contests, with their last win in Ancient Eight play coming in a 4-2 victory over Brown on April 5, 2014.

On Friday, Penn took on Cornell at home and fell, 7-0. The Big Red (12-8, 4-3 Ivy) clinched the doubles point with a pair of victories by identical 6-3 scores. Colin Sinclair and Sam Fleck of Cornell defeated sophomores Matt Nardella and Thomas Spratt, followed by Bernardo Casares Rosa and Chris Vrabel topping the No. 74 duo of senior Jeremy Court and freshman Nicholai Westergaard.

In the singles matches, the Quakers (14-10, 0-7)did not fare any better, losing all six matchups. Junior Blaine Willenborg was one of only two players to even win a set, eventually losing to Casares Rosa, 3-6, 6-2, 3-6.

The Quakers then traveled to take on Columbia before being swept for the second time in as many days. With the victory, the Lions (14-5, 7-0) captured the Ivy League title for the second straight year.

The onslaught began as Columbia captured the doubles point with Ashok Narayana and Dragos Ignat defeating Westergaard and Nardella, as well as Max Schnur and Bert Vancura taking down Austin Kaplan and Willenborg, both by the score of 6-1.

Later in the day, Willenborg and Kaplan each won sets — the second straight day they were the only two to do so — in singles, but fell to Ignat and Vancura, respectively. Court also put up a valiant effort against No. 18 Winston Lin, but lost 7-5, 6-3.

The Quakers have undergone a turbulent season. After starting out 9-1 and rising to No. 39 in the ITA rankings on March 3, the team struggled to remain competitive after losing its top two singles players in freshman Nicholas Podesta and senior Vim De Alwis.

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