By Tom DiCamillo, Commissioner
SYRACUSE, N.Y. – It has been 18 months and one day since the State University of New York Athletic Conference women's tennis teams competed for the conference title in Binghamton, N.Y.
On October 13, 2019, New Paltz defeated Oneonta 5-2 in the championship match to claim the SUNYAC crown and the automatic berth to the NCAA post-season – a post-season that never materialized because of the pandemic.
Fast-forward to April 14, 2021, when the pop of tennis balls being volleyed signals the return of SUNYAC women's tennis as Cortland travels to New Paltz and Oneonta visits Plattsburgh in a pair of SUNYAC East division contests.
Technically, the season was supposed to open on April 15; however, rain in the forecast nudged the opening matches up a day.
In a strange year where the traditional look of SUNYAC women's tennis will be as unfamiliar as moving to a new city, the curve balls being fired at the eight conference teams are being repelled as deftly as a routine return.
The SUNYAC women's tennis schedule typically produces an eight-team round-robin format during the fall that culminates with a four-team conference championship tournament inside the Binghamton Tennis Center in mid-October. The tournament winner grabs the automatic qualifier and then competes in the NCAA Division III National Championship Tournament in the spring.
This season the divisional conference schedule and championship tournament will be conducted in a three-week period that ends in early May with a four-team playoff held on one day at Cortland.
The eight-team SUNYAC is sliced into two divisions that feature a six-game, double round-robin divisional schedule. Some institutions may schedule non-conference crossover matches that will not count in the league standings.
The East includes Cortland, New Paltz, Oneonta and Plattsburgh, while the West consists of Brockport, Fredonia, Geneseo and Oswego.
Gone is the three-match indoor series consisting of six teams at the Binghamton Tennis Center that served as a prelude to the conference championships.
The post-season will feature the top two teams in each division with the number one seeds facing the number two seeds from the opposite division outdoors at Cortland on Thursday, May 6, in the SUNYAC semifinals. The championship match will follow on that same day.
Because of the unique set up of women's tennis within the structure of the NCAA Championships, SUNYAC women's tennis actually is the one conference sport that will crown a champion in both 2019-20 and 2020-21.
The SUNYAC has built-in additional tiebreakers, as well as plans to address scenarios when teams have played an inequitable number of games.
Spectators are not permitted at SUNYAC contests this spring as visitors are not permitted on member campuses.
