May 1, 2018
By Joanne Norell
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – The University of Notre Dame men’s tennis team will make its 26th NCAA Championship appearance in 28 years this season, as the 24th-ranked Irish were one of 33 at-large picks selected to compete in the 64-team tournament during the NCAA.com Selection Show on Tuesday.
The Irish (18-13) were picked as the No. 2 seed in their regional pod and will face No. 3 seed Western Michigan (22-4) either May 11 or 12 at Michigan’s Varsity Tennis Center. On the other side of the pod are top-seed Michigan (15th overall seed) and No. 4 seed Cleveland State. The winners of those two matches will meet May 12 or 13 for a chance to advance to the NCAA quarterfinal at Wake Forest.
Notre Dame returns to the NCAA field after finishing in the top four of the Atlantic Coast Conference standings and advancing to the semifinal of the conference tournament. The Irish boast a resume that includes wins over No. 8 Texas, No. 18 Duke and No. 42 Miami.
The top 16 overall seeds will serve as hosts for first- and second-round regional action, with 31 teams receiving automatic bids and the remaining 33 earning at-large bids to the 64-team, single-elimination tournament. The winners of each four-team pod will advance to the NCAA Division I Men’s Championship quarterfinals held May 18-22 at the Wake Forest Tennis Complex in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Tournament matches will be regulation dual matches with three six-game doubles matches played for one team point, followed by six singles matches, each valued at one team point, played in best-of-three sets. No-ad scoring will be used and a seven-point tiebreaker will be played at six-games-all in doubles and at six-games-all in singles.
During the championships, all matches will be stopped after the doubles point is decided. All remaining individual matches will be stopped once a team winner (four points won) has been determined. The score will only reflect completed matches.
—
For the latest on all things Irish men’s tennis, follow @NDMensTennis on Twitter and like Notre Dame Men’s Tennis on Facebook.
–ND–
Joanne Norell, athletics communications assistant director at the University of Notre Dame, has been part of the Fighting Irish athletics communications team since 2014 and coordinates communications efforts for the Notre Dame men’s tennis and fencing programs, in addition to assisting with football communications and overseeing production of the football Gameday Magazine. Norell is a 2011 graduate of Purdue University and earned her master’s degree from Georgetown University in 2013.