INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. – The NCAA Division III Women’s Tennis Committee has selected the 49 teams that will compete in the 2017 NCAA Division III Women’s Tennis Championships. Gustavus (19-7) will compete in a seven-team regional, hosted by Chicago. Gustavus’s first round match is against St. Norbert (23-11) Friday. Host Chicago has a first round bye, while teams in the region include Augustana (24-6), Coe (18-9), Kenyon (11-9), and Franciscan (13-4).
The teams will play a single-elimination tournament with the first, second- and third-rounds played at regional sites, Friday-Sunday, May 12-14, or Thursday-Saturday, May 11-13. University of the South and the Chattanooga Sports Commission will host the team championships finals, which will be held May 22-27 at The Champions Tennis Club in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Student-athletes selected to the individual championships will be announced Wednesday, May 10.
The championships provide for a 49-team tournament. Automatic qualification (AQ) is granted to 38 conference champions, which form “Pool A.” Two teams were selected from true independents and schools from conferences that do not have an automatic bid for their champions (Pool B). The remaining nine 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.