NEW YORK -- Columbia men's tennis sophomore, Alex Kotzen, has earned the Ivy League's automatic bid to the NCAA Division I Men's Tennis Singles Championship. One of just 64 athletes selected to compete in the Championship, Kotzen has played from the Lions top spot all season, ranking as high as #7 nationally.

The singles and doubles competition will be conducted May 23-28 at the Khan Outdoor Tennis Complex in Champaign, Illinois, after the conclusion of the team championship, which runs from May 19-22. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will serve as host.

All matches shall be the best-of-three sets. No-ad scoring and a 7-point tiebreaker (first to seven points, must win by two points) at six-games-all will be used for all matches. In doubles, a 10-point match tiebreaker will be played in lieu of a third set.

Automatic qualification into the Division I singles championship is awarded to any conference with one or more eligible singles players ranked in the ITA Top 125 for eligible/entered singles players.  For conferences with more than one singles player within the ITA Top 125 eligible/entered singles players, the subcommittee applies the NCAA selection criteria to determine which student-athlete is the automatic qualifier from those conferences. All singles players must have a minimum of 13 started singles matches, with six matches in the spring, in order to be selected as an automatic qualifier or an at-large selection.

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