The fall season is underway and most coaching openings have been filled some with new hires and some with interims. Mike Edles announced his retirement at UC Irvine on September 1st and it was announced yesterday that assistant coach Elizabeth Ferris had been elevated to interim women’s coach for the upcoming season. Ferris, who played at Utah from 2004 to 2008, had been the Edles assistant for the last three seasons.
UC Irvine Names Elizabeth Ferris Interim Women’s Tennis Coach https://t.co/1Lmg68iTY0— Bobby Knight (@College10s2day) September 20, 2016
Northern Arizona men’s head coach Ki Kroll was named the interim women’s coach for the upcoming season. Kroll has led the NAU’s men’s team to the conference tournament finals in each of the last two seasons. The NAU women’s job came open when Kim Bruno departed after 11 years to take the head coaching job at Michigan State.
Idaho men’s head coach Abid Akbar was named the interim women’s coach for the upcoming season. Abid, who played at Idaho from 2009 to 2013, went 16-7 in his first season as the men’s head coach. The Vandals’ women job came open when Mariana Cobra left after two seasons to take the women’s job at North Florida which was vacated when Audra Cohen took the Oklahoma job.
Nicholls State changed head coaches fairly quietly earlier this month. Greg Harkins, who had previously coached the women’s team at Louisiana Lafayette from 2011 to 2015, replaced Meenakshi Sundaram who went 66-72 (.478) over the last six seasons. Sundaram had been named the Southland women’s coach of the year as recently as 2015. Nicholls State didn’t put out a release on the change and I’m not sure why Sundaram departed or where he went – if anyone knows let me know.
According to my coaching carousel page the only open men’s head coaching job is at Bethune-Cookman though their website isn’t exactly on top of things so they may have a coach but just haven’t listed him or her. On the women’s side Bethune-Cookman, East Tennessee State, and LIU Brooklyn are showing head coaching openings. ETSU just opened up recently after Travis Sandland left to take the same position at Stetson.
Buffalo men’s head coach Lee Nickell announced the hiring of Matt Lucas as the Bulls new associate head coach. Lucas played collegiately at Appalachian State and NC State (’02) and most recently was the Head Tennis Pro at The Palencia Club in St. Augustine, Florida. Lucas replaces Yevgeniy Shkodnik who accepted a director position at the John McEnroe Tennis Academy back in early August.
Middlebury College women’s head coach Michael Morgan has an opening for a full-time women’s assistant coach – if interested apply online at this link.
New Old Dominion men’s head coach Dominik Mueller talked to Ted Alexander of Monarch Media about the upcoming season and also gave some background on himself in a three minute interview.
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There are a slew of tournaments taking place this weekend with the ITA’s Tournament Schedule showing a whopping 30 different events. Below are the following tournaments that I’ll be keeping tabs on this weekend:
Louisiana Lafayette is hosting the John Breaux Cajun Classic for the third year in a row with a talented field including Kentucky’s William Bushamuka, LSU’s Jordan Daigle, USC Thibault Forget, and several others. The main tournament page has both singles and doubles draws along with the schedule of events with play getting underway on Thursday morning at 9 a.m. CT. Ole Miss’s Tim Sandkaulen, LSU’s Rafael Wagner, and Louisiana’s Jamie Fraser and Pearse Dolan will be making their collegiate debuts.
Seeds:
1. William Bushamuka (Kentucky)
2. Jordan Daigle (LSU)
3. Justin Butsch (LSU)
4. Harrison Scott (Texas)
5. Alex Sendegeya (Texas Tech)
6. Thibault Forget (USC)
7. Arjun Kadhe (Oklahoma State)
8. John Mee (Texas)
San Francisco is hosting the Battle in the Bay Classic with the following men’s teams sending representatives: TCU, Cal, USC, Stanford, San Diego UCSB, Pepperdine, Cal Poly, Iowa, Pacific, Portland, and San Diego State. The men’s draw gets underway on Friday with the winner receiving a a wildcard into the $100K Tiburon Challenger. The women’s draw starts on Thursday and will have representatives from San Francisco, Arizona, UCSB, Santa Clara, and Pacific. The winner of the gets a wildcard into the $50K Stockton Challenger. All draws are available here.
Seeds
1. Florian Lakat (Cal)
2. Logan Smith (USC)
3. Alec Adamson (UC Davis)
4. Jerry Lopez (TCU)
5. Ben Donovan (Cal Poly)
6. Rob Bellamy (USC)
7. Brandon Holt (USC)
8. Pedro Iamachkine (Pepperdine)
Alabama is hosting the Crimson Tide Four-in-the-Fall with men’s participants from Alabama, Columbia, Memphis, and Tulane.
South Florida is hosting the Bedford Cup with the following teams sending men’s representatives – South Florida, Florida, Florida State, Stetson, UNF, FAU, FGCU, FAMU and Bethune-Cookman. All draw information is available here.
Georgia is hosting the Southern Intercollegiates with the following teams sending men’s representatives – Arkansas, Armstrong State, Baylor, Belmont, Central Florida, Clemson, East Tennessee State, Eastern Kentucky, Elon, Florida, Gardner-Webb, Georgia, Georgia College, Georgia State, Georgia Tech, Kennesaw State, Kentucky, Lander, Lipscomb, Louisville, Miami, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, UNC Charlotte, Old Dominion, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Tennessee Tech, Texas Tech, Vanderbilt and Virginia Tech. Draws should be available on Thursday.
Georgia is also hosting the Bulldog Classic with the following women’s teams coming to Athens – Georgia Tech, Georgia State, and Texas Tech.
I’ll post results from these events plus a few others.
Coaches/Tournament Directors, if you are running a tournament and you have a consolidated list of daily results from your tournament send them to me (bobbyk@collegetennistoday.com) and I’ll be more than happy to post them.
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