Men's Tennis Travels East for a Pair of Road Duals

EAST LANSING, Mich. - Michigan State's men's tennis team returns to action this weekend with a pair of road duals against Penn and Cornell in nonconference action. MSU will open the weekend with a trip to Philadephia on Friday, Jan. 31 to take on Penn at 2 p.m. inside the Penn Tennis Center before hitting the road to take on Cornell on Sunday, Feb. 2 at 12 p.m. at the Reis Tennis Center in Ithaca.

QUOTES FROM COACH ORLANDO

"We are looking forward to the challenge fo playing two quality teams in Penn and Cornell this weekend," said MSU men's tennis head coach Gene Orlando. "The Ivy League teams are always good and we have had great preparation since the beginning of the season and I believe we are ready for a breakout weekend."

ABOUT THE SPARTANS

Michigan State (3-1) is coming off a pair of home wins over Ball State (4-2) and Niagara (7-0) on Saturday, Jan. 25 inside the MSU Indoor Tennis Facility. Sophomore Carson Gates went 2-0 on the weekend in the number three slot in singles, improving to 3-1 in dual action. Sophomore Anthony Pero is 3-0 in duals on court two and junior Josh Mukherjee is 2-1 in flights five and six. MSU is led by Mukjerjee and freshman Kazuki Matsuno with a 3-1 record in doubles in the third flight. Freshmen Drew Keene and Jarreau Campbell tallied their first singles dual wins as Spartans against Niagara on Jan. 25.

SCOUTING PENN

Penn comes into the weekend with a 1-1 record and a win over Navy, 7-0. Penn's lone loss came to No. 18 Tennessee, 7-0. Keene and junior John Carlin competed against a pair of Quakers at the Farnsworth-Ivy Plus tournament in the fall. Keene fell to evenutal bracket champion Aditya Gupta and Keene and Carlin dropped a doubles match in the quarterfinals to Gupta and Jeff Zucker. Friday's dual will be the first meeting between Penn and Michigan State.

SCOUTING CORNELL

Cornell begins the season 1-0 and is coming off a 7-0 home sweep over Binghamton on Jan. 25. Lev Kazakov and Alafia Ayeni are joined by Evan Bynoe and Konstantin Kirovski with combined 2-0 records in singles and doubles. The Big Red finished their 2018-19 slate 14-10 overall and 5-2 in the historically tough Ivy League. Silviu Tanasoiu leads Cornell and is in his seventh year at the helm. The Spartans hold a 2-1 advantage over Cornell in the all-time series. MSU fell to the Big Red, 4-0, in its last meeting on Feb. 2, 2019 at home.

Live stats will not be available during the weekend, but updates will be made available throughout the day @MSU_Tennis on twitter.

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Players Mentioned

Jarreau Campbell

John Carlin

Carson Gates

Drew Keene

Kazuki Matsuno

Josh Mukherjee

Anthony Pero