Tennessee Wesleyan Earns No. 4 Seed in NAIA Men's Tennis Championship

KANSAS CITY, Mo. –  [Bracket] The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) has officially announced the 24-team field for the 71st Annual NAIA Men's Tennis National Championship. The event will be held at the Mobile Tennis Center in Mobile, Ala., from May 16-20, for the 19th-consecutive year (the 2020 event was canceled due to COVID-19).

The field consists of 15 automatic berths, including one host berth, and nine at-large selections. Automatic qualification is mainly given to conference and unaffiliated grouping tournament champions. For the sixth consecutive year, at-large teams were determined by the NAIA Tennis National Selection Committee (NSC). The NSC consists of coaches and administrators from around the country. The committee evaluated teams throughout the year on various criteria. Mobile (Ala.) received the host berth.

Tennessee Wesleyan is the only team from the Appalachian Athletic Conference (AAC). The Bulldogs advanced thanks to winning the AAC Tournament.

Keiser (Fla.) earned the top spot in 2023 and has been ranked the No. 1 team in the nation in the NAIA Men's Tennis Coaches' Top 25 polls for the final six consecutive ratings periods. The Seahawks defeated defending national champion Georgia Gwinnett to earn the top spot.

Georgia Gwinnett is in pursuit of its ninth-consecutive national title in 2023. The Grizzlies are a perfect 32-0 all-time in the national tournament and lead all active NAIA programs in national championship titles with eight. The Grizzlies are one of two programs in the 2023 field which have sustained just one loss. Tennessee Wesleyan is the only other one-loss team in the field. The Grizzlies are the lone team with a national championship in their history.

The Blue Raiders of Lindsey Wilson (Ky.) have the most tournament appearances of the field with 20. Keiser (Fla.) (16), Mobile (Ala.) (15), Xavier (La.) (14), William Carey (Miss.) (12), and Northwestern Ohio (10) are the only other schools in the field with 10 or more appearances.

The Sun Conference leads all conferences and unaffiliated groupings with the most schools in the field with five. The Southern States Athletic Conference and the Mid-South Conference has the next highest total with three.

19 of the 24 teams in the field are returning from 2022.

Three teams will be making their first appearance in the NAIA Men's Tennis National Championship. Holy Cross (Ind.), Southwestern (Kan.) and Westcliff (Calif.) will be making their first national championship appearance.

For more information on the 2023 NAIA Men's Tennis National Championship, click HERE!