Lake Forest Starts MWC Play with Loss to Grinnell, Victory over Cornell

Photo by Yanna Glaspy
Photo by Yanna Glaspy

The Forester men's tennis team was defeated 9-0 by Grinnell College on campus Saturday morning before defeating Cornell College by the same score at the Racquet Club of Lake Bluff in the afternoon.

The closest match between Lake Forest and Grinnell, the 12th-ranked team in the Central Region, was at #1 singles when Forester senior Oleksyi Vyshyvanyuk won the second set 6-3 after being doubled up himself in the first. Grinnell's top player, who is currently ranked 18th in the region, took the third set super tiebreaker 10-4.

Vyshyvanyuk and sophomore Daniel Tulchinskiy started the match against Cornell with an 8-1 victory at #1 doubles. Freshman Ian Villardi Venturini Barbosa and sophomore Kyle Lassen prevailed 8-4 at #2, as did senior Jacob Tilton and junior Eduardo Manuitt at #3.

Tulchinskiy did not drop a game at #2 singles and Vyshyvanyuk was also dominant in a 6-0, 6-1 decision at #1. Lassen came out on top 6-0, 6-3 at #4 and Villardi Venturini Barbosa took both sets 7-5 at #3. Manuitt rolled 6-1, 6-0 at #6 and Tilton closed out the day with 6-1 victories in both sets at #5.

Lake Forest is now 6-8 overall and 1-1 in Midwest Conference play. Grinnell improved to 10-7 overall and 2-0 in the league while Cornell's overall record fell to 7-12 and MWC mark to 0-2.

The Foresters will play two more conference matches next Saturday when they visit Illinois College at 9:00 in the morning and Monmouth College at 3:00 p.m.