NCAA Tournament Brackets
 
INDIANAPOLIS – For the 14th time in the last 17 seasons, the Slippery Rock University women's tennis team punched its ticket to the NCAA Division II Tournament when the NCAA selection committee announced The Rock as the No. 3 seed in the Atlantic Region during a live selection show of the 2023 tournament field Monday night.
 
Overall, seven teams from the Atlantic Region qualified for the NCAA Tournament. The University of Charleston and Indiana University (Pa.) garnered automatic bids, and ultimately the top two seeds in the region, after winning the Mountain East Conference and Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference tournaments, respectively, while The Rock, West Virginia State, West Liberty and Fairmont State received at-large berths.
 
Shaw University, the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association Tournament champions, are seeded seventh.
 
As the No. 3 seed, Slippery Rock will face No. 6 seed Fairmont State in the opening round 2 p.m. May 1 in Indiana, Pennsylvania. If victorious, Slippery Rock will advance to face the winner of the IUP-Shaw match in the second round on May 2.
 
In the other Atlantic Region bracket, top-seeded Charleston will square off against the winner of the West Virginia State-West Liberty first round match on May 2 as well.
 
The NCAA Tournament is comprised of 48 teams, 20 automatic berths and 28 at-large selections, spanning eight regions. The teams will play a single-elimination tournament at 16 preliminary round regional sites May 1-2 with the champions from each regional location advancing to USTA National Campus Collegiate Center in Orlando, Florida May 11-16 to determine the 2023 national champion.
 
Slippery Rock earned its tournament bid after a 2023 season in which it went 15-8 overall, but more importantly 14-6 against Division II opponents and a near perfect 5-1 in PSAC West competition while advancing to the championship match of the PSAC Tournament for a second consecutive year.
 
The NCAA Tournament will run in a dual-match format with three doubles contests followed by six singles matches. The doubles matches will be played as three, six-game pro sets with a seven-point tiebreaker at six-all. Singles matches will be run as six best-of-three sets matches. Teams that win two of the three doubles matches earn a point. Each singles match earns a team one point. Teams must win four points to clinch a match.
 
Slippery Rock features a deep and balanced lineup that includes five key veterans of the program, all of whom possess past NCAA Tournament experience, along with two outstanding newcomers.
 
SRU's lineup is spearheaded by seniors Adriana Gonzalez Sanchez and Gabriela del Val del Toro. Gonzalez Sanchez anchors The Rock's standard singles rotation from the top flight. So far this year, she has won 18 matches and has gone 12-10 in the first flight. Gonzalez Sanchez has been stellar as of late with seven wins in her last nine matches.
 
del Val del Toro is in the midst of one of the best individual seasons in program history. She enters the NCAA Tournament sporting a 28-7 overall record that includes a 19-4 showing out of the second flight.
 
Dari Sakhanova, one of two first-year athletes on the roster, joined Slippery Rock at the start of the spring semester and immediately solidified herself in The Rock's lineup by going 14-7 out of the third flight.
 
Nuria Martin Lopez joins del Val del Toro as a 20-match winner. Another of program's reliable returners, Martin Lopez has had a career-year in 2023 as evidenced by her 21-11 overall record and her 14-6 mark in the fourth flight. One of the many highlights of her season was a 10-match winning streak that lasted nearly the whole month of April.
 
The trio of Tina Slovak, Georgie Lancaster and Teddi Isherwood have split time throughout the backend of Slippery Rock's singles lineup this season and proven more than capable of recording big victories when called upon.
 
Lancaster is 9-9 overall in dual matches this year, and 8-7 out of the sixth flight. Slovak, The Rock's other freshman, is 7-4 when playing from the fifth flight. Isherwood has come on strong in the later stages of her sophomore campaign with three victories in each of her last three appearances in SRU's lineup.
 
A key component to Slippery Rock's success this season has been its outstanding results in doubles play. Of its 20 matches against fellow Division II opponents, SRU has earned the team doubles point on 17 occasions.
 
Isherwood and Gonzalez Sanchez spent parts of the season in the ITA's national doubles rankings. In their first seasons as partners, The Rock's No. 1 doubles pairing have compiled a 13-8 record.
 
Martin Lopez and del Val del Toro have gone 21-11 as a duo in 2022-23. In team play, they compete from the second flight and have gone 15-6.
 
The rookie pairing of Slovak and Sakhanova have combined to post a nearly perfect 16-3 record out of the third flight.
 
Slippery Rock will be making its 19th NCAA Tournament appearance overall and its 18th trip to the national championships under head coach Matt Meredith.




To stay up to date with all that happens at The Rock, follow our official athletic communication accounts on Twitter (@Rock_Athletics), Facebook (RockAthletics) and Instagram (RockAthletics).