INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- After winning its 13th-straight SCAC Men’s Tennis Championship, the Trinity Tigers booked their ticket to compete in the 44-team NCAA Division III Men’s Tennis Championships, which is set to begin with the first-, second- and third-round matchups this weekend, May 4-7. Interactive Bracket | NCAA Release
Trinity, which enters the NCAA Tournament as the eighth-ranked team in the ITA National Poll and second in the ITA West Regional Poll, will be competing in the national tournament for the 13th year in a row and the 29th time in program history. The Tigers won the NCAA Div. III Men’s Tennis national championship in 2000 and finished third in 2014.
Trinity received a first-round bye and will open play on Saturday at Claremont-Mudd-Scripps in Claremont, Calif., against Concordia University (TX). Concordia, ranked 11th in the most recent ITA West Regional Poll, earned the American Southwestern Conference’s automatic qualifying bid after outlasting Hardin-Simmons, 5-4, last Saturday to improve to 17-4. The winner of the Trinity/Concordia contest will take on the winner of host Claremont-M-S (19-4) and UC Santa Cruz (7-8) in the regional finals on Sunday with a trip to the national quarterfinal round on the line.
Trinity, which is seeking its 44th NCAA Tournament victory is facing off against Concordia for the second time in national tournament history. The Tigers defeated the Tornados, 5-1, in the 2021 second round.
The teams will play a single-elimination tournament with the first-, second- and third-rounds played at regional sites, Friday-Sunday, May 5-7, or Thursday-Saturday, May 4-6. The United States Tennis Association, Oglethorpe University and the Greater Orlando Sports Commission will host the team championships finals, which will be held May 13-16 at USTA National Campus in Orlando, Florida. Student-athletes selected to the individual championships will be announced Wednesday, May 3.
The championship provides for a 44-team tournament. Automatic qualification (AQ) is granted to 33 conference champions, which form "Pool A." Four teams will be selected from true independents and schools from conferences that do not have an automatic bid for their champions (Pool B). The remaining seven teams are selected from those teams in conferences with automatic bids that did not win their conference's AQ and the remaining Pool B institutions (Pool C). The teams are geographically paired, whenever possible.
University of Chicago is the defending national champion, having defeated Case Western Reserve University, 5-2, to claim the 2022 team title.
