All season, the No. 56-ranked men’s tennis team has been playing towards one goal—an Ivy League championship. This weekend, the men’s team has a chance to assure itself at least a share of the coveted title for the second time in three seasons by sweeping Penn and No. 71 Princeton, the Lions’ final opponents of the season.
Columbia (14-5, 4-1 Ivy) will host Penn (10-10, 1-4 Ivy) on Friday and will then travel to Princeton (10-8, 3-2 Ivy) on Sunday for its regular season finale. The Lions sit in first place in the Ivy League heading into the weekend, but Brown looms only one game behind, as the Bears have played one fewer match then Columbia. Brown edged Columbia 4-3 last weekend, and if the two teams were to finish the season with one loss apiece, there would be a one-match playoff to determine the Ivy League’s representative in the NCAA Tournament.
“There is no change of mind-set for the team,” head coach Bidyut Goswami said. “We feel like we got a break when Cornell beat Brown, and now we have to take advantage of that break and do our job. We will worry about Penn first and then if we win, we will worry about Princeton.”
The Lions will host the Quakers in their final home match of the season on Friday. Penn enters with a record of 1-4 in the Ivy League and has played several close matches against some of the top teams in the conference. The Quakers lost by scores of 4-3 to Princeton and Yale, who both are nationally ranked. The Quakers also lost 5-2 to Harvard but got two convincing wins from two freshmen in the middle of the lineup. Phil Law at No. 4 and Jason Lin at No. 5 both easily defeated their Crimson opponents in straight sets, and the No. 6 player for Penn lost in a third set tiebreak. In addition, the Quakers nearly knocked off the Crimson earlier in the season in the Eastern College Athletic Conference Men’s Indoor Tennis Championship when the Crimson were ranked No. 46 nationally. Penn had five match points at No. 1 singles but failed to convert them and was defeated in a 4-3 heartbreaker.
“Both Lin and Law are good players,” Goswami said. “Haig [Schneiderman] beat Law in the fall, but both are good players.”
The Quakers are led by junior Hicham Laalej at the No. 1 singles spot. Laalej has gone 12-7 this spring, including 2-3 in the Ivy League, although all three of those losses came in three sets.
Last season, the Lions beat Penn 4-3 in their season finale. The Lions swept the doubles point and got wins at No. 3 and No. 4 singles as well as a three-set win at No. 6 to win the match (Laalej did not play).
On Sunday, the Lions will travel to Princeton in what could be a must-win match if Brown is upended by Harvard on Friday. Princeton still has a chance to win the Ivy title this weekend, and the Tigers have a strong league record, including a 4-3 stunner over Harvard. The match will be played outdoors if the weather permits, which would put Columbia at a disadvantage since the Light Blue has been practicing indoors all season and has only played outdoors during its spring break trip to Texas.
“The match might be outdoors, but we don’t want to worry about it now. When we finish with Penn, we will worry about it,” Goswami said. “It will be a moot point if we lose.”
Princeton is led by senior Peter Capkovic, last season’s Ivy League Player of the Year and a member of the all-Ivy first team. The senior is 5-0 in Ivy play this fall at the No. 1 singles position and notched a straight set win over Harvard’s No. 77 Chris Clayton.
“Capkovic is a good player,” Goswami said. “When he is playing well, he is tough to beat. Bogdan [Borta] has beaten him before, and it will be both of their final matches.”
Goswami paused for a second before continuing, “Well, hopefully not Bogdan’s final match.”
Borta beat Capkovic in three sets, 7-6, 6-7, 6-2, on his remarkable run to the Wilson/ITA Regional Championship Finals where Borta qualified for the National Championships.
This is the final weekend of regular-season play, and various scenarios exist for the league championship. Goswami, however, is solely focused on the results of his squad.
“Hopefully we just win both of our matches and make it easier for everyone,” he said.
The Lions will host Penn at 2 p.m. at the Dick Savitt Tennis Center and will travel to Princeton on Sunday for a 1 p.m. start.
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