Coaching Changes, Kentucky Planning a M Facility, Pro Circuit Update

Old Dominion Director of Athletics Dr. Wood Selig announced the hiring of Dominik Mueller as the Monarchs new men’s head coach. Mueller, who is a 2011 Baylor graduate, had been the assistant coach at Baylor for the last five seasons. Mueller replaces Aljosa Piric, 76-35 (.685), who left after five seasons to take the men’s head coaching job at Miami, Florida.

University of Iowa Director of Athletics Gary Barta announced the hiring of Sasha Schmid as the Hawkeyes new women’s head coach. Schmid, who was a 1996 Iowa graduate, had been the women’s head coach at Missouri the last five seasons compiling a 54-75 (.419) record and prior to that she was the head coach at Stetson going 132-101 (.567) in 10 seasons. Schmid replaces Katie Dougherty who made a family decision to resign after seven seasons, 71-92 (.436), and move closer to home and become the assistant women’s coach at Maryland.

Missouri’s associate head coach Colt Gaston was named as the interim coach. Gaston joined the Missouri coaching staff as an assistant prior to the start of last season and had recently been promoted to an associate head coach.

Here is my current list of head coaching openings at the D1 level.

The University of Kentucky announced that it has tentative plans to build a new $20M tennis complex which would include 12 outdoor courts and either a refurbished or new indoor center. Kentucky’s current facility, Hilary J. Boone Varsity Tennis Complex, is 31 years-old and has 17 outdoor and 4 indoor courts but it doesn’t have six courts in a row which it makes it tougher to follow a dual-match.

#333 Tennys Sandgren (Tennessee ’11) and #352 Evan King (Michigan ’13) advanced to the semifinals at the $25K Futures in Edwardsville, Illinois, and will face each other on Saturday. Sandgren defeated #415 Connor Smith (Ohio State ’13) 6-3, 6-0 while King knocked off #394 Gonzalo Escobar (Texas Tech ’12) 6-1, 2-6, 6-1. #1296 Emil Reinberg (Georgia Rising Soph) only won 3 of 22 points on his second serve and fell 6-0, 6-0 to #382 Omar Jasika.

#799 Aziz Dougaz (Florida State Rising Soph) advanced to his first career singles final after defeating #727 Alexander Zhurbin 6-2, 6-4 at the $10K Futures in Nador, Morocco. Dougaz will face qualifier Reda El Amrani in the finals. El Amrani, who is unranked, is only playing his second pro event in the last three years but he was ranked as high as 160 back in 2010.

#1398 Benjamin Hannestad (South Florida commit) advanced to his first career semifinal after
defeating the top seed #383 Joao Domingues 6-2, 7-6(5) at the $10K Futures in Castelo Branco, Portugal. Hannestad will face #610 Jonny O’Mara in the semifinals after O’Mara defeated #1245 Nuno Borges (Mississippi State Rising Soph) 6-1, 1-6, 7-5. Borges was up a break at 2-1 in the third but he got broke in the next game and got broke again from 15/40 to lose it.

#474 Mikelis Libietis (Tennessee ’15) ran his winning streak to nine after defeating #909 Patrik Niklas-Salminen 7-6(5), 6-4 in the semifinals of the $10K Futures in Parnu, Estonia. Libietis will face #1626 Alberto Brizzi in the finals – Brizzi’s career high ranking of 230 came back in 2010 but he didn’t play any tournaments from July 2014 to March 2016 due to an injury.

#963 Rishab Agarwal (Mississippi State Rising Sr) advanced to his second career semifinal after a 6-3, 6-3 win over #650 Gengo Kikuchi at the $10K Futures in Thu Dau Mot City, Vietnam. Next up is 18-year old #1020 Renta Tokuda.

#766 Ronit Yurovsky (Michigan ’16) and #1058 Josie Kuhlman (Florida Rising Jr) advanced to the semifinals ITF $10K in Austin, Texas. Yurovsky came back from a 4-0 third set deficit to defeat #737 Katherine Sebov 4-6, 7-6(5), 7-5 – next up is #345 Marcela Zacarias. Kuhlman defeated #585 Alexa Graham 6-7(6), 6-3, 6-2 and will meet #686 Ashley Kratzer who knocked off Felicity Maltby (Texas Tech Rising Soph) 6-2, 6-4.

#255 Jamie Loeb (North Carolina ’15) advanced to the semifinals at the ITF $50K in Lexington, Kentucky, after a 7-5, 6-3 win over #341 Greetje Minnen. Next up #234 Arina Rodionova.

#34 Kevin Anderson (Illinois ’07) lost in the quarterfinals of the ATP Masters 1000 in Toronto to #5 Stan Wawrinka 6-1, 6-3.

#182 Blaz Rola (Ohio State ’13) fell to #292 Uladzimir Ignatik 6-4, 7-6(3) in the quarterfinals at the $42.5K Challenger in Prague, Czech Republic.

#282 Lloyd Glasspool (Texas ’15) had a 7-6(7), 5-3 lead on #264 Ernesto Escobedo but he couldn’t close it out and lost 6-7(7) 7-5, 6-3 in the quarterfinals of the $50K in Lexington, Kentucky.

#235 Daniel Nguyen (USC ’12) also exited Lexington in the quarterfinals after falling to #207 Andrew Whittington 7-5, 5-7, 6-1.

#623 Sander Gille (East Tennessee ’12) lost 7-6(3), 4-6, 6-3 to #568 Omar Salman in the quarterfinals at the $10K Futures in Duinbergen, Belgium.

Alberto Barroso Campos (South Florida Rising Soph) lost a tough one to #404 Pedro Martinez Portero 7-5, 6-7(7), 6-3 in the quarterfinals of the the $10K Futures in Xativa, Spain. Barroso Campos came back from a 4-0 third set deficit to pull within 4-3 but he got broke at love and then Martinez Portero served out the match at love.

#359 Dragos Dima (Cornell ’12) saw his eight match winning streak coming to an end after falling to #893 Nicolae Frunza 6-3, 2-6, 6-3 in the semifinals at the $10K Futures in Cluj Napoca, Romania.

I’ll have a doubles recap in my Saturday post.