2026 Liberty League Men's Tennis Tournament

Friday, May 1 - Sunday, May 3, 2026 • Ithaca, N.Y. • Reis Tennis Center (Cornell University)

Live Results • Championship Central

SCHENECTADY, N.Y. – The #60 Union College men's tennis team is back in the Liberty League Tournament for the first time in three years and will begin postseason play with a first-round matchup against #65 Rochester Institute of Technology on Friday at 8:30 a.m. at Cornell University's Reis Tennis Center.
 
THE BRACKET: Union (10-9, 4-4 Liberty League) and RIT (9-10, 4-4 Liberty League) finished in a three-way tie for fourth place during the regular season, with RIT winning the tiebreaker to earn the fourth seed and Union drawing the fifth slot. The other first-round match features the third team in that three-way tie, sixth-seeded Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (4-12, 4-4 Liberty League), and third-seeded #54 Ithaca College (10-7, 5-3 Liberty League). Top-seeded #27 Vassar College (15-5, 8-0 Liberty League) and second-seeded #24 Skidmore College (14-5, 7-1 Liberty League) received byes into the semifinals.
 
POSTSEASON HISTORY: The Union men are making their fourth postseason appearance since tournament qualification started in 2015. The team is 10-30 in Liberty League Tournament play since 1998, but have only had two main-draw victories during that time – the last came in 2005, when sixth-seeded Union knocked off third-seeded Hobart. The conference stopped employing a back draw at the event in 2012.
 
ALL-TIME VS. RIT: Union and RIT have met almost every season since the Tigers joined the Liberty League in 2012, with Union holding a slight 7-6 edge in 13 all-time meetings. RIT has won the last three meetings after Union captured the previous five. This will be the teams' first meeting in postseason play.
 
LAST MEETING: Union dropped a 5-2 decision to RIT in Schenectady back on April 12 at Sportime Capital Region. Junior Daniel Saxe played a role in two of his team's three wins with a doubles win alongside sophomore Vivaan Gupta and a fourth-singles victory, while first-year Simon Philip also was victorious in fifth-singles play.
 
BACK TOGETHER: For the first time since 2023 and the third time in program history, both Union men's and women's tennis teams qualified for the Liberty League Tournament in the same season. All three occurrences have happened in the last five years, as both squads previously made the postseason in 2022 and 2023.
 
CONFERENCE HONORS: Sophomore Jesus Sosa ended the regular season with his second Liberty League Singles Performer of the Week honor, after previously being recognized at the end of March. He is one of two Union players to earn weekly honors from the conference, along with junior Shreyas Kode in September.
 
REACHING NEW HEIGHTS: This year's team is the first squad in the 114-year history of men's tennis at Union to reach double-figures in wins in a season. The Garnet Chargers surpassed the 1974 team (8 wins) to become the winningest team in program history with their victory over Rensselaer on April 23 and reached double digits in Sunday's regular-season finale. The team's four conference wins this year also are tied with the 2022-23 side for the most in a single season, while the team has also clinched its first .500 or better season since finishing 4-4 in 2006-07.
 
FIRST-YEAR FORCE: First-year Simon Philip has made a big impact as a rookie, leading the team in singles wins, doubles wins and total wins. He is 15-10 overall in singles play and 10-6 in dual matches, and boasts a winning record at all four flights in which he has played a match this year. He also has a team-best 11 doubles wins so far this season, including a 7-7 mark since being paired with junior Solen Bellemare during the spring.

SCOUTING THE TIGERS: RIT is in the postseason for the second straight season after earning the third seed and reaching the semifinals year ago. Yu Tanimoto is 15-2 at the first-singles spot and 18-4 overall to lead the Tigers this season, while Alec Turcotte is 9-6 at primarily the second-and third-singles slots. The first-doubles tandem of Tanimoto and Alexander Sinclair has also been dominant, winning 14-of-16 dual matches so far this season and advancing to the quarterfinals of the ITA Northeast Regionals in the fall.
 
WHAT'S NEXT: Friday's winner will take on top-seeded Vassar in the Liberty League semifinals on Saturday at 8:30 a.m. in Ithaca.