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This weekend, Yale’s tennis teams continued conference play with Saturday matches against Cornell and Sunday matches against Columbia. 

The men’s tennis team (9–11, 1–4 Ivy) hosted Cornell (16–6, 3–1) on Saturday and Columbia (12–6, 2–1) on Sunday in Cullman-Heyman Tennis Center. Meanwhile, the women (12–9, 3–2) hit the road for New York, where they took on the Big Red (8–10, 3–2) in Ithaca on Saturday and the Lions (12–10, 2–3) on Sunday. 

The women’s team bested Cornell in a huge 4–1 victory Saturday. Though the squad sought a weekend sweep, it fell to the Lions in a 2–4 loss. 

Chelsea Kung ’23 led the team in singles, followed by Caroline Dunleavy ’22, Mirabelle Brettkelly ’25, Jessie Gong ’22, Rhea Shrivastava ’23 and Vivian Cheng ’23. Kung and Gong headed the women’s doubles line-up, ahead of Kathy Wang ’22 with Dunleavy and Cheng with Shrivastava.

“It is always tough to play on the road, so it was nice to get a win against Cornell away,” women’s head coach Rachel Kahan said. 

Kung, Gong and Shrivastava had straight set wins of (6–2, 6–4), (7–5, 6–2) and (6–4, 6–3), respectively. Brettkelly eked out a three-set victory of 6–2, 4–6, 6–3 at No. 3 singles against the Big Red.

Kung and Cheng earned the Bulldogs’ two points against Columbia. Kung claimed a 6–2, 7–6 victory over Columbia’s Akanksha Bhan and Cheng posted a 7–5, 6–1 win over Shivani Amineni.

Yale’s women’s team still stands at No. 59 in the national rankings. Princeton continues to lead the Ivy League at No. 50, followed by No. 63 Columbia and No. 72 Harvard.

The men’s team had a rocky weekend at home, suffering a tight 3–4 loss to Cornell on Saturday and a wider 1–6 loss against Columbia on Sunday.

Michael Sun ’23 led the team in singles, followed by Theo Dean ’24, Cody Lin ’22, Aidan Reilly ’25, Walker Oberg ’25 and Luke Neal ’25. Lin and Renaud Lefevre ’24 headed the team in doubles, ahead of Dean with Reilly and Sun with Neal.

Dean and Reilly dominated their No. 2 doubles match with scores of 6–2 on both days. In singles, Dean defeated Cornell’s Vladislav Melnic, currently ranked No. 105 nationally, 6–3, 7–5 and obliterated Columbia’s Hugo Hashimoto 6–0, 6–0. 

“Theo is an extremely hard worker whose approach to his development is very professional,” men’s head coach Chris Drake said.

Yale’s men’s team has still struggled to crack the top 75 nationwide rankings. No. 13 Harvard continues to lead the Ivy League, followed by No. 25 Columbia, No. 39 Princeton, No. 42 Penn and No. 59 Cornell.

This weekend, the women will trek to Hanover to take on Dartmouth (7–11, 1–4) on Friday and will honor their seniors as they welcome Harvard (12–9, 3–2) to Cullman-Heyman on Sunday.

Wang expressed her excitement for Senior Day on Sunday and for the opportunity to challenge Harvard one last time.

The men will host the Big Green (8–11, 0–5) for the men’s Senior Day on Friday and travel to Cambridge to take on the Crimson (15–4, 5–0) on Sunday. 

“Our team will focus on doubles a lot in the coming week. We lost both doubles points this weekend and doubles is very important to the team matches,” Neal said. “I am most looking forward to having our final matches: senior day against Dartmouth and then ending the season playing Harvard.”

The Yale-Harvard matches will be the Bulldogs’ last regular-season matches.