One year after Ball State's impressive 12-year reign atop the Mid-American Conference ended, the MAC began to hold tournaments for MAC tennis. Since then the Cardinals have won the tournament four times, earning two automatic births into the NCAA Championship.
Six teams will come into Muncie this weekend, but only one will leave as MAC Tournament Champion and earn an automatic bid into the NCAA tournament.
Coming in as the favorite is No. 58 Western Michigan with nationally ranked senior No. 91 Ravi Pathanjali, front-runner for the MAC Player of the Year Award. The Broncos defeated Ball State 4-3 last weekend and swept the MAC this year.
Last year, Western Michigan was ranked second and lost in the second round to third seeded host team Northern Illinois.
Ball State is ranked second in the MAC. The Cardinals, despite the 4-3 loss in Kalamazoo, Mich., have a decent chance to win the tournament. Ball State is the only team that has won the MAC tournament as the top-seeded school.
The Cards have dropped only four doubles points in 24 matches. Winning the doubles point is important, as it gives the winning team a 1-0 advantage going into singles play.
Northern Illinois comes in as the third ranked team after going 3-2 in the MAC. Northern Illinois had a 7-0 loss to Western Michigan and a 4-3 loss at Ball State.
Their opponent is the sixth-ranked Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne. IPFW is building its program, and a first round upset from the Mastadons would be a surprise to everyone in the tournament. IPFW and Northern Illinois will face off at 10 a.m. today at the Cardinal Creek Tennis Center.
The game will be followed by a matchup of fourth-ranked Buffalo and fifth-ranked Toledo. Buffalo defeated Toledo 4-3 in the regular season matchup. The winner of this matchup will go on to face top-seeded Western Michigan. The Broncos defeated both teams in the regular season.
Western Michigan, Ball State and Northern Illinois seem to be the realistic choices to win the tournament, with a clear division in the MAC between the top three teams well above the bottom three in both record and talent.
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