WACO, Texas – The 2022 NCAA Championships bracket for men's tennis was announced on Monday evening, and Abilene Christian will represent the Western Athletic Conference as the four-seed in the Waco Regional. The Wildcats draw top-seeded Baylor in the first-round showdown, which will follow a matchup between two-seed Texas A&M and three-seed Tulsa.
"This is obviously a new experience for everyone on the team, so we are going to soak up every minute of it and leave everything out there. We have a very tough opponent in front of us, as Baylor is year in and year out a top five team in the nation, but that's why you want to play the national tournament," head coach Juan Nunez said. "I'm really excited for all the guys to experience this, especially our seniors Riley and Oswaldo, who have been a pleasure to coach and incredible leaders for our team."
The Purple and White picked up the WAC crown in Beaumont on April 24, defeating Lamar in the finals to avenge ACU's lone conference loss this season.
Oswaldo Cano picked up the trophy-clinching point for the Wildcats, giving Abilene Christian a win in six consecutive matches.
Four days earlier,
Cesar Barranquero and
Dario Kmet were both named as All-WAC selections for singles action, while Cano and
Daniel Morozov landed on the Second Team.
Barranquero, a freshman from Villaescusa, Spain, closed out the season with eight straight singles victories, outscoring opponents 97-33 over that stretch. Kmet played in the second flight throughout the season for the Purple and White, picking up ten wins, including a perfect 6-0 record in WAC singles action.
Morozov played the top singles flight in all 16 of his matches as a true freshman, including a 4-1 mark in WAC play. Cano was one of the most steady players at #6 singles in the entire league, racking up a 6-2 record from that spot and 13 wins overall. Kmet and Morozov also landed on the First Team as one of the top two doubles tandems in the league, going unbeaten in the top flight throughout conference action.
This is the second time since 2015 that Baylor has received a top-four overall seed. The Bears are currently 26-3 on the 2022 season and ranked the No. 3 overall team in the nation per the latest Oracle/ITA team rankings. Abilene Christian is making their first appearance on the national stage since making the move to Division I, and the WAC Championship comes in the program's first year in the league.
First- and second-round competition takes place May 6-7 and features four teams playing in a single-elimination format at one of 16 regional sites. The winner of each site advances to super-regional competition May 13 or 14. Each super-regional site will feature two teams playing a single-elimination format. The super-regional winners advance to the Khan Outdoor Tennis Complex in Champaign, Illinois, where the eight teams will compete for the national championship May 19-22. The event will be hosted by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
The matches will be regulation dual matches. Three doubles matches consisting of six-game sets will be played for one team point, followed by six singles matches, each valued at one team point; played the best of three sets. No-ad scoring will be used and a seven-point tiebreaker (first to seven points, must win by two points) will be played at six-games-all. The team winning four or more team points advances in the championship bracket.
During the championship, 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. The complete list of teams and sites is included on the official bracket, which is available at
www.ncaa.com.
#GoWildcats
