ATLANTA, Ga. – Competing in the individual and unofficial portion of their season, Alabama A&M men's and women's tennis served notice that they will be a force to be reckoned with as both finished third at the HBCU National Championships with graduate Jasmine Boyd (Marion, Ind.) claiming an individual national title in a tournament that ran from Thursday, September 15-18.
 
Boyd would be a force as she plowed her way through the 32-seed field, taking advantage of a first round bye before knocking off Sahra Bouchaala of Alabama State 2-6, 6-4, 10-6 in her first match. In the quarterfinals she would dispatch Tennessee State's Daniela Koleva 6-4, 6-3 before slipping past Florida A&M's Rebekkah Gaines 6-3, 2-6, 6-4 to advance to the finals.
 
There she would take care of business, knocking off North Carolina Central's Kennedy Hill 6-4, 6-3 to claim her first HBCU National Championship by virtue of winning Flight A.
 
She would not be alone in that bracket, however, as senior Camila Ruiz Diaz (Asuncion, Paraguay), following a 6-2, 7-5 loss to Xavier of Louisiana's Juliette Finch, would work her way to the consolation final of Flight A. She advanced past Abner Dixon 8-1 and beyond Naomi Von Bose by withdraw to reach the final before falling 8-2 to Bouchaala.
 
Additionally, freshman Yana Dhamija (Gurugram, India) advanced to the quarterfinals of Flight C and freshman Alicia Owegi (Nairobi, Kenya) made the semifinals of Flight B.
 
For the men, freshman Chetanna Amadike (Alberta, Calgary, Canada) produced an impressive first performance in the Maroon and White as he recovered from a 6-3, 6-4 loss to Pierre Copin of Tennessee State to win the Flight B Consolation.
 
He would knock off Michael Zhou of LeMoyne-Owen 8-2 before earning a bye to the quarterfinals. There he defeated Noah Johnson 8-0 and downed Facundo Olmedo 8-2 in the semifinals. He would then defeat Guillermo Coiras 8-4 for the consolation title.
 
Sophomore Maties Torres Ramis (Arta, Spain) delivered another impressive performance for A&M, earning a spot in the Flight B Semifinals while freshman Arnav Pathange (Mysore, India) did the same in Flight C. The pairings of graduate German Ruiz Crespo (Mollina, Spain) and Ramis and Pathange and sophomore Freddie Lawrence (Peachtree City, Ga.) each reached the semis of Flight B Doubles.
 
"I'm proud of Jasmine's accomplishment," said head coach Willis Mbandi. "This has been one of her goals since she arrived here and to see her realize it this year was special. She played her best tennis in the finals. I'm pleased with the teams overall performance as well. All of our players competed well in all their matches.
 
In terms of overall standings, the women finished in third with 22 points, trailing Xavier of Louisiana (25) and North Carolina Central (22.5) while the men notched 17 points behind Alabama State (30) and Tennessee State (19).
 
Alabama A&M will compete in several more individual tournaments in the fall before announcing the full in-season 2023 schedule later this year.