IRVINE, Calif. -- The Big West will have five teams entered in the inaugural Universal Tennis National Invitational Tennis (NIT) Championship.
 
The University Tennis NIT Championship will be conducted from May 17-20 at the Peachtree City Tennis Center in Peachtree City, Ga., just outside of Atlanta. Amazon Prime will stream the tournament and be available to regular Prime subscribers at no additional cost.
 
Cal Poly, CSUN and UC San Diego are the three of the eight teams in the NIT Championship. The Mustangs are 14-9 overall and tied for second in The Big West with a 6-3 conference record. Cal Poly had five All-Big West honorees in Kim Bhunu, Delanie Dunkle, Peyton Dunkle, Kennedy Buntrock and Alexandra Ozerets. The Matadors also finished second in the league with a 5-3 record and are 17-6 overall. Four CSUN players were named All-Big West in Jolene Coetzee, Angela Ho, Sasha Turchak and Yuliia Zhytelna. The Tritons are 10-17 overall, 2-7 in conference play and could not participate in The Big West Championship due to its reclassification period to Division I. Triton 44th-year head coach Liz LaPlante announced her retirement at the end of the season earlier this month.
 
UC San Diego will face No. 1 seed TCU, Cal Poly will play No. 2 seed Colorado and CSUN is matched up against No. 3 seed Stetson in the quarterfinals set to take place May 17.
 
Two men’s squads from the Big West highlight the eight-team men’s NIT Championship in UC Davis and UC San Diego. The Aggies are 13-7 overall and went 5-1 in conference play to win a share of the regular season title. UC Davis had seven honorees receive All-Big West recognition in Constantinos Djakouris, Mitchell Davis, Andrei Volgin, Lucas Bollinger, Coleton Hootman, Andras Necz and Brett Brinkman with Djakouris winning the Freshman of the Year award. The Tritons went 7-16 overall and 0-6 in conference play during the season. UC San Diego could not participate in The Big West Championship due to its reclassification period to Division I. Two Tritons were named All-Big West in Pelayo Rodriguez, Diogo Tinoco and Daniel Traxler.
 
UC Davis received the No. 4 seed and will play Army on May 18. UC San Diego will face No. 3 seed Liberty, also on May 18.
 
The NIT Championship will allow men’s and women’s teams to gain valuable postseason experiences. Eight teams will be selected to participate in this year’s event by the NIT tournament committee, with the team's UTR Power 6 ranking among the top criteria for consideration.
 
The tournament format will be playoff knockout rounds with two matches guaranteed. First-round losers will get one extra match. Teams will play standard college dual matches, meaning each matchup will be three doubles sets (first to 6 games; the team that wins two sets wins the doubles point) followed by six singles matches (best two out of three sets; each match is worth one point). Play will stop when the dual match is clinched (a team reaches four points).