Men's Tennis Hosts Ivy League Opponents This Weekend

ODU (4-0) vs. Penn (2-2) | vs. Brown (2-4)
Where: Folkes-Stevens Tennis Center
When: Saturday, Feb. 3 – 10 a.m. | Sunday, Feb. 4 – 1 p.m.
Live Stats: Penn | Brown
Live Stream: Penn| Brown
 
NORFOLK, Va. – After a two-match sweep on the opening road trip of the 2024 season, the Old Dominion men's tennis team returns home for a pair of matches this weekend hosting Ivy League foes Penn and Brown.
 
The Penn match will be at 2 p.m. on Saturday, while the Brown match will be at 10 a.m. on Sunday inside the Folkes-Stevens Tennis Center.
 
Sunday's match will serve as Darryl Cummings Day as there will be a special presentation honoring the late head coach of the ODU tennis programs prior to the match.
 
"The Ivy League has been one of the strongest conferences in college tennis over the last five years. They are getting 4-5 teams into the NCAA tournament each year and Penn made it at large the past two years," said ODU Head Coach Dominik Mueller. "Penn also beat us those two years so we are looking forward to a highly contested match. Brown got a new coach last year and brought in several new players. They are on the upswing and will give us a battle as well."
 
Last year, ODU fell to Penn 6-1 in Philadelphia on Jan. 21, 2023. Cosme Rolland de Ravel took the lone point for the Monarchs with a 6-3, 7-6 (7-2) win at No. 4. Penn has won the last two matches, while ODU leads the series 8-3 dating back to 2002.
 
The Monarchs have split four meetings with Brown dating back to 2004. ODU took the last meeting 4-2 on Mar. 19, 2017 in Norfolk.
 
Old Dominion (4-0) took a pair of wins in the Midwest last weekend with a 5-2 victory at Wisconsin and a 7-0 win at Drake. In the win over Wisconsin, Rolland de Ravel and Jakob Cadonau clinched the team point with a 6-3 win. In singles, his 6-2, 6-1 win clinched the team win at No. 3. 
 
The Drake match saw the Monarchs win the doubles point again as Cadonau and Rolland de Ravel clinching the point in a 6-3 win at No. 2. Singles saw Aryan Saleh open with a 6-3, 6-1 win at No. 5, followed by Connor van Schalkwyk with a 7-6, 6-3 win at No. 2 to put ODU up 3-0. Cadonau clinched the win with a 7-6, 6-0 win at No. 6 to give the Monarchs a 4-0 lead.
 
The final three matches all went three sets as Rolland de Ravel put the lead to 5-0 with a 0-6, 6-3, 6-1 win at No. 3. ODU's final points came off super tiebreaker wins as Codie van Schalkwyk won 3-6, 7-6, 1-0 (10-4) win at the top spot and Yanis Moundir finished the sweep with a 6-1, 6-7 (5-7), 1-0 (10-7) win at No. 4.
  
So far this spring, Moundir is 4-0 mainly at No. 4, while a trio of Monarchs are 3-0 with Rolland de Ravel (No. 3), Cadonau (No. 6) and Connor van Schalkwyk (No. 2). In doubles, Maxime Mareschal-Hay and Moundir are 4-0 mainly at No. 3, with Cadonau and Rolland de Ravel being 3-0 mainly at No. 2.
 
Penn (2-2) plays at VCU on Friday before coming to Norfolk, opened by splitting a pair of matches at Tennessee falling to the Vols ((7-0) and defeating Furman (4-0). They last competed at the ITA Kickoff Weekend Regional hosted by Virginia where they lost to Florida Atlantic (4-3) and defeated Northern Arizona (4-1) last weekend. They have one nationally-ranked doubles tandem as Kian Vakili and Aaron Sandler are 56th.
 
Brown (2-4) will host Fairfield on Friday before coming to Norfolk. They lost their first four matches to Clemson (6-1), Georgia Tech (6-1), 22nd-ranked Michigan State (7-0) and Western Michigan (5-2) In their last two matches they defeated Boston College (5-2) and Siena (6-1).
 
ODU is back at home again on Wednesday with a pair of matches hosting Norfolk State at noon and then William & Mary at 5 p.m.