Photo Gallery (Stockton Photo)

NEW YORK – The No. 40 Big Red men's tennis team won its first-ever outright Ivy League championship with a commanding 6-1 victory over Columbia this afternoon at the Dick Savitt Tennis Center. With the victory, Cornell improved to 26-4 (7-0 Ivy), while the Lions fell to 8-15 on the season (2-5 Ivy).

After Cornell swept all three doubles match to take an early 1-0 lead, Nathaniel Gery responded by defeating Mirza Klis (6-4, 6-3) at the No. 3 spot to knot the match at 1-1. From there on out, however, it was all Big Red. Andy Gauthier, Evan Bernstein and Venkat Iyer all picked up straight-set victories before Jonathan Jaklitsch topped off the night with a thrilling three-set win at the No. 1 spot.

The Big Red will learn its NCAA tournament fate when the brackets are announced on Tuesday, May 3. The first round of NCAA competitions is slated to begin on Friday, May 13.


No. 40 Cornell def. Columbia 6-1
Doubles
1. Bernstein/Jaklitsch (COR) def. Gery/Yetimoglu (COL) 8-5
2. Feldman/Gauthier (COR) def. Schneiderman/Matsumoto (COL) 8-6
3. Klis/McElwain (COR) def. Deb-Sen/Kung (COL) 9-8 (9-7)

Singles
1. Jonathan Jaklitsch (COR) def. Haig Schneiderman (COL) 5-7, 6-4, 1-0 (10-8)
2. Andy Gauthier (COR) def. Kevin Kung (COL) 6-4, 6-3
3. Nathaniel Gery (COL) def. Mirza Klis (COR) 6-2, 6-3
4. Jeremy Feldman (COR) def. Cyril Bucher (COL) 6-2, 6-4
5. Evan Bernstein (COR) def. Tizian Bucher (COL) 7-6, 6-2
6. Venkat Iyer (COR) def. John Yetimoglu (COL) 6-4, 7-5

Order of Finish
Doubles: 2, 1, 3
Singles: 3, 2, 5, 4, 6, 1