On Sunday the Red competed in its second to last tournament of the fall. The team traveled to Hanover, N.H., where it competed against Ivy rivals Brown, Princeton and host Dartmouth as well as Amherst and Army. Cornell came away from the weekend with one singles and one doubles title.

Freshman Alex Sidney defeated Dartmouth’s first seeded Xander Centenari a big win for the young player. 

“Alex Sidney had an impressive performance,” said head coach Silviu Tanasoiu. “And in the last game — the final — I was really pleased with way he played, [the way he] approached the match and some of the adjustments he was able to make.” 

Sidney credits those adjustments to Tanasoiu, who just signed on as head coach a few weeks ago. 

“It was our first full tour with the new coach and I thought it really showed me what he has in store for us and what the coach was gonna do for us,” he said. “The coach was on my court the entire match and talked to me over the changeovers ... he just helped me during the match gave me a lot of good strategy. It really showed me that he's going to do great things for the program and that was good to see.”

Tanasoiu too was pleased not only with the individual players’ performances but also with the direction the team is moving towards.

“I’m excited about the next few weeks,” he said. “We are going to be here, on the court and we are gonna get to work on a lot of the things … from the Dartmouth Invitational. Hopefully well make some strides in that regard.”

Tanasoiu has been taking notes on each individual player, meeting with them and giving them unique goals to work towards, as well as finding areas to improve upon as a team.

“We need to be more disciplined,” Tanasoiu said. “One of the things that I continually stress with the guys is our shot selection and the disciple we need to have in ... the way we go about making decisions on the court.” 

On the doubles side, sophomore co-captain Evan McElwain and freshman Quoc-Daniel Nguyen beat Dartmouth’s first seeded doubles team by a close margin  — going all the way to a tiebreaker — to take a title for Cornell. 

This upcoming weekend, the Red hosts its own invite tournament that marks the end of fall tournament play.

“I think especially since it’s our invitational with the teams that come here, we definitely have potential to win every match, singles and doubles,” McElwain said. “That’s definitely our goal and our expectation.”

Despite the lofty aspirations, the team is also looking to just see how its progress is coming along. 

“Once again, this is an opportunity to compete — I stress the process with the guys, not the outcome,” Tanasoiu said. “We need to make sure that we are taking care of the things we can control. My expectation is for each of our guys to make sure that they transition and they are able to put in action what we work on in practice. If they are gonna be able to execute all the things we have been working on in practice, I am going to be a happy coach.”

As the fall season draws to a close, the players have had some time to reflect on how the experience of working with a whole new group of guys has been. 

“It’s a good team dynamic,” McElwain said. “[The older guys] always instill a really hard work ethic for the people coming in, we’ve kept that going for several years; this year is no different. We definitely instilled that in all our freshmen. Everyone has been great. It is a much different team but a good group of guys. We have a lot of fun together, it’s a good time.”

The freshmen also agree that the transition has been going smoothly, both on and off the court.

“I think its going great,” Sidney said. “At first, it was hard to balance academics and athletics but I’m managing my time a lot better. I am getting my work done when necessary and getting as much practice as possible — I’ve fallen into a good schedule as of now so if I can just stay consistent with this, I think it should work out pretty well.” 

After this weekend, the team will not compete again until January. In the meantime, the team continues to work on molding together as a team. 

“I think the guys are definitely improving and everyone’s game are starting to come together,” McElwain added.