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Coaching Updates & Other News & Notes

by | Aug 12, 2016 | Blog

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Southern Illinois women’s head coach Audra Anderson was promoted to the Director of Tennis and will now assume the role as the new men’s head coach after the departure of Dann Nelson to UTRGV. Anderson has gone 140-83 (.627) in nine seasons at SIU which gives her the best winning percentage in school history. Jonny Rigby, who graduated this past May, will serve as a graduate assistant for a program that is now going year-to-year due to the financial woes in the state of Illinois. Normally I add a picture when the school puts its news release on Twitter or Facebook but as far as I can see they didn’t put it on social media anywhere which is pretty poor considering how quiet things are this time of year.

Nebraska-Omaha has a new women’s head coach for the second time in three weeks after UNO AD Trev Alberts announced the hiring of Adam Summitt. Summitt comes to Omaha from Ottawa University (NAIA) where he served as both the men’s and women’s head coach for the last two seasons. Summitt’s women’s team at Ottawa excelled going 32-18 (.640) while the men’s team struggled going 6-34 (.150). Alberts announced the hiring of Olga Elkin as the new women’s coach on July 19th but Elkin stepped down to become Armando Espinosa’s new women’s assistant coach at Iowa State. UNO removed it’s hiring release on Elkin but the original link is still active here.

New Auburn men’s head coach Bobby Reynolds announced the hiring of Ryan Lipman as the Tigers new assistant coach. Lipman, who like Reynolds graduated from Vanderbilt, left as the school’s all-time wins leader (174) after his final season in 2014. He spent the last two seasons as a volunteer assistant at Vanderbilt while also playing a handful of Futures.

New Central Florida Director of Tennis John Roddick announced the hiring of Philippe Oudshoorn as the Knights new men’s assistant coach. Oudshoorn played at Virginia from 2009 to 2012 and he spent last year as a volunteer assistant at Virginia. The two years prior Oudshoorn was the men’s assistant coach at George Washington under then coach Greg Munoz.

Newly promoted George Washington women’s head coach Torrie Browning announced the hiring of Petra Ferancova as the Colonials new assistant coach. Ferancova played at Mississippi State from 2011 to 2014 and earned her degree in 2015. She was a volunteer assistant at MSU during the 2014-15 season and last year she was an assistant coach at Albany.

A couple of schools announced some signees to this year’s class. Tulane head coach Mark Booras will have five newcomers on campus this year with Ewan Moore (UTR 13.71), Luis Erlenbusch (13.18), Jonathan Star (12.83), Tim Ruetzel (12.50), and Chase Schupp (11.98) scheduled to come in. Booras returns five players off last season’s roster, four of which were starters, but has to replace Dominik Koepfer (14.54), Alex Van Cott (12.72), and Ian Van Cott (12.39).

Illinois head coach Brad Dancer announced that he’ll have six newcomers join the team this season. Zeke Clark (UTR 13.79), Gui Gomes (13.35), and Kris Ortega (12.49) were announced earlier in the year while Aleks Kovacevic (13.39), Noe Khlif (13.29), and Vuk Budic (12.65) were just recently announced. Dancer loses Jared Hiltzik (14.83) who played in the top two all season along with Brian Page (12.27) who saw action sporadically.

Kentucky rising junior Trey Yates earned his first ATP point earlier in the week at the Champaign Futures when he defeated Notre Dame’s Josh Hagar 6-4, 7-5.

Alabama released its men’s schedule and women’s schedule for the upcoming season with a slew of quality non-conference opponents on the slate. The George Husack coached men’s squad will face East Tennessee State, Michigan (Orlando), Texas Tech, Clemson, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State in addition to meeting Washington and either Georgia or Purdue during the ITA Kick-Off Weekend. Jenny Mainz’s women’s team plays Harvard and either Ohio State or Florida State during the ITA Kick-Off Weekend along a few other matches that weren’t mentioned in the release. Both the men’s and women’s team will participate in the Blue Gray Tennis Classic in Montgomery, Alabama.

Steve Tignor wrote a good article on Tennis.com about Steve Johnson and his experiences at the Olympics (into the quarterfinals) and his year in general.

I saw a good article from the Associated Press about the rowdy atmosphere for tennis at the Rio Olympics. It’s worth the read and reminded me of what it was like in the Big 12 the season before last when it was just about anything goes during conference matches. As many remember Tom Perrotta wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal about his experiences in Waco in 2015. The rowdy atmosphere was pulled back this year in college tennis but it may not be dead in the future.

Joey Dillon wrote a nice piece on the Tennis Recruiting Network about former Oklahoma State Cowgirl Malika Rose. It talked about her tennis upbringing, unconventional recruiting process, and her time at Stillwater and afterwards.

The University of Texas men’s team is looking for a UT student that’s interested in being a student manager for the upcoming season. If you go to UT and are interested contact the team through Twitter – would be a good experience for someone looking to get their feet in the door in the world of college tennis/athletics.