Princeton University Athletics
Princeton University
Columbia
Players Mentioned
McCourt Picks Up Win at Top, But Columbia Defeats Men's Tennis
April 17, 2015 | Men's Tennis
Princeton's top two players beat Columbia's top two Friday afternoon at the Lenz Tennis Center, but the Tigers couldn't find the other points needed to knock off the Ivy's top-ranked team as the 22nd-ranked Lions won 5-2.
Princeton, the 35th-ranked team in the nation by the ITA, will head to No. 48 Cornell Sunday looking for a 10th win against an ITA-ranked opponent on the season. Princeton is now 9-7 against ranked opponents this spring.
Columbia began the day by sweeping the doubles point, and though Tom Colautti tied the team score on court two with a straight-set win over No. 96 Dragos Ignat, Columbia won the next four matches to be decided, clinching the team win. Zack McCourt, one of two seniors in the singles lineup along with Dan Richardson, won a tiebreak third set against Winston Lin, the No. 18-ranked player in the country, to close the match.
Lin is the eighth ranked singles opponent McCourt has defeated on his career, and Lin is the highest-ranked opponent McCourt has defeated as a Tiger, surpassing a win over No. 48 Vlad Stefan of Michigan in 2013. It was the first time McCourt defeated Lin four tries.
Colautti's win over Ignat was the highest-ranked win for the sophomore in his Tiger career and the fifth win over a ranked opponent in his two seasons. Ignat won twice against Colautti last season, including once in the teams' Ivy League meeting.
| 2 |  |
(35) Princeton (18-7, 3-3 Ivy) vs. (23) Columbia (13-5, 6-0 Ivy) Apr. 17, 2015 • Lenz Tennis Center, Princeton, N.J. |
 |
5 |
Doubles
| 1 | (37) Colautti/McCourt (P) | |
(56) Lin/Vermeer (C) | 7-5 |
| 2 | Day/Vives (P) | |
Ignat/Narayana (C) | 7-5 |
| 3 | Luke Gamble/Kaiser (P) | |
Schnur/Vancura (C) | 6-3 |
Singles
| 1 | Zack McCourt (P) | |
(18) Winston Lin (C) | 6-7, 7-6, (11-9) |
| 2 | Tom Colautti (P) | |
(96) Dragos Ignat (C) | 6-4, 6-3 |
| 3 | Alex Day (P) | |
Ashok Narayana (C) | 6-3, 0-6, 6-4 |
| 4 | Dan Richardson (P) | |
Mike Vermeer (C) | 3-6, 6-4, 6-1 |
| 5 | Diego Vives (P) | |
Shawn Hadavi (C) | 6-7, 6-2, 6-2 |
| 6 | Kial Kaiser (P) | |
Bert Vancura (C) | 6-4, 4-6, 6-2 |
| Next match: at (48) Cornell, Sunday, April 19, 1 p.m. in Ithaca, N.Y. |
| Match notes: Columbia has won six in a row against Princeton ... the program honored its four seniors, Michael Katz, Zack McCourt, Ben Quazzo and Dan Richardson, prior to the match, the team's final home contest of the season. |
| Order of finish: Doubles: 3,2,1; Singles: 2,3,4,6,5,1 |
 |
Coach Billy Pate on the match: "I'm once again proud of our effort and energy we displayed today against maybe the best team Columbia has fielded. They have a very senior-laden squad and I think their experience helped them in the close matches. I'm disappointed we didn't do a better job of maintaining the momentum we had and for whatever reason we got off to poor starts in each of the third sets in singles. We clearly had chances, but losing four of five three-set matches was unfortunate. However, our team is young and continuing to grow. I'm pleased Zack could notch a great win against Winston Lin on senior day. We look forward to traveling to Cornell for the match Sunday. It will be yet another tough battle and we'll need to be at our best." |