NEW WILMINGTON, Pa. (pacathletics.org)--The Presidents’ Athletic Conference (PAC) Women’s Tennis Championship Tournament gets underway with quarterfinal action Tuesday afternoon.

This is the fifth year the PAC Championship Tournament will feature a team championship bracket format, with Tuesday's quarterfinal round, Thursday's semifinal round and Saturday's championship match. The league had previously sponsored a flighted championship, with individual players and doubles pairings exclusively seeded and not based on a team's regular-season finish, since supporting a full complement of women’s sports (1985-2017). 

In Tuesday’s quarterfinal round, No. 3 Grove City College will host No. 6 Saint Vincent College while No. 4 Westminster College will host No. 5 Washington & Jefferson College, with the nine-point team format played to decision (first team to five individual match wins).

Top-seeded Allegheny College and No. 2 Franciscan University will receive quarterfinal byes.

Thursday's semifinals and Saturday's championship match will also utilize the nine-point team format, with matches played to decision. On Thursday, the winner of the No. 4 Westminster-No. 5 W&J quarterfinal will travel to Meadville to face No. 1 Allegheny. The winner of the No. 3 Grove City-No. 6 Saint Vincent quarterfinal will head to Steubenville to take on No. 2 Franciscan. 

Allegheny, led by second-year head coach Dave Hayden, went 8-0 in PAC regular season matches to earn this year's top seed. Allegheny has posted a 12-0 dual match record this fall, winning nine matches with 9-0 scores, including seven of its eight league victories.

Franciscan and seventh-year head coach Scott Greve, winners of the last two PAC Championship Tournament titles, went 7-1 in the PAC and has recorded a 9-2 overall record this season. 

Allegheny announced its return to the PAC on August 23, 2021 after a 38-year run as a founding member of the North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC). Allegheny was a PAC member from 1958 through the spring of 1984 and reentered the PAC as its 11th full-time member on July 1, 2022. 

This year’s tournament champion will secure the PAC’s automatic qualifying bid to the Division III Championships. Team selections will be announced Monday, May 1, 2023. The first round of the Division III Championships is scheduled for Friday, May 5.