Oklahoma Set to Host No. 21 Cornell

No. 7 Oklahoma vs. No. 21 Cornell

Norman, Okla. | March 12 | 12 p.m. CT.

Headington Family Tennis Center

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MATCHUP AT A GLANCE
	Oklahoma	Cornell
2017 Record	10-3	12-2
2016 Result	20-11 (NCAA Final)	12-10
Ranked Singles Players	#21, #36, #77, #101	X
Ranked Doubles Players	#38, #41, #58, #59	X
Doubles Point Record	8-5	8-6

NORMAN -- Oklahoma men's tennis will be back at the Headington Family Tennis Center on Sunday, as the No. 7 Sooners look to capture their fifth top-25 win of the season against No. 21 Cornell in a noon CT match. OU, 10-3 on the season, remains unbeaten at home in 2017 at 7-0. Weather permitting, Sunday's match will be the first played outdoors in the 2017 season.

SOONERS OVERVIEW

Oklahoma has been trending the right way in the Oracle/ITA team rankings this season, opening at No. 12 and now sitting safely in the top ten at No. 7. The Crimson and Cream, at 10-3, have four top-20 wins on the season over Michigan, Illinois, Northwestern and Florida. All three of the squad's losses came against the top-two teams in the nation, Wake Forest and Ohio State (twice), and the four Sooners ranked nationally in singles - Florin Bragusi, Alex Ghilea, Andrew Harris and Spencer Papa - have moved up from their opening singles rankings of the season. OU also kicked off the year with no ranked doubles teams, but now feature four of the nation's top 60 doubles tandems.

THE FORECAST

SCOUTING CORNELL

Cornell enters the weekend at 12-2 on the season and No. 21 in the nation after two months of action. The Big Red is an experienced side, with four seniors and one junior in its regular singles and doubles lineups. Senior Colin Brisbane remains unbeaten on the season in singles at 11-0 at the No. 3 and No. 4 positions. Freshman Lev Kazakov is also 6-2 at the No. 1 singles spot. Cornell has already notched three wins over top-50 opponents, defeating Yale, Indiana and Tennessee.

TANASOIU'S RETURN

Cornell is led by fifth-year head coach Silviu Tanasoiu, an OU tennis alumnus and former assistant coach for the Sooners. Tanasoiu was an All-Big 12 member in 2003 and 2004, as well as an ITA Academic All-American in 2004. Tanasoiu, a Romania native, was then an assistant coach at Oklahoma for five years from 2007-2011. Coach Tanasoiu recruited Oklahoma All-Americans Andrei Daescu and Costin Paval to Norman before being named the ITA Central Region Assistant Coach of the Year in both 2010 and 2011.

THRIVING DOWN THE MIDDLE

The middle of the singles lineup is where Oklahoma has been nearly unbeatable in 2017 thanks in large part to the squad's pair of Romanian seniors Bragusi and Ghilea. Ghilea is 9-1 in singles dual play, 5-0 at the No. 2 spot at 4-1 at No. 3. Bragusi is also 9-1, going 5-0 at No. 3 and 4-1 at No. 4 singles. In addition to the pair, OU's duo of German freshmen Adrian Oetzbach and Jochen Bertsch have combined to go 4-1 at line four singles, which includes a win for Oetzbach over Florida's 109th-ranked Johannes Ingildsen, 6-3, 6-2, in the Sooners' win over the then-No. 6 Gators.

Senior Florin Bragusi eyes a ball during a 2016 regular season match at the Headington Family Tennis Center. Weather permitting, Sunday's match against Cornell will be the Sooners' first of the year played outdoors.

STREAKING AT HOME

Visitors have not had it easy this year when venturing to the Headington Family Tennis Center, as Oklahoma maintains an unbeaten 7-0 home record in 2017. Two of those wins came against current top 20 foes in No. 10 Michigan and No. 20 Illinois. The 7-0 mark makes it three out of the last four years OU has began their season with at least seven consecutive home wins - in 2014 and 2015 the Crimson and Cream failed to lose a home match all year. The program also hasn't lost two straight home matches since the spring of 2010, dating back 84 matches.

A LOOK AHEAD

Oklahoma will be spending a lot of time in California following Sunday's match, with a Tuesday date with Pepperdine in Malibu, Calif., on the docket before featuring in the BNP Paribas Open Collegiate Challenge in Indian Wells, Calif., from March 17-19. Coach Crowell and the Sooners will then be back home for the tail end of their season, Big 12 conference play, with two matches at the Gregg Wadley Indoor Tennis Pavilion versus Texas (March 31) and TCU (April 2). Last year at the BNP Paribas Open, Oklahoma went 1-1, falling to No. 12 USC and beating No. 14 California.

For more information on Oklahoma men's tennis, follow the team on Twitter @OU_MTennis.