Schaechterle Tapped for Pepperdine Men's Job; Patton, Fish Leave Coaching Positions; Reinberg Gets ATP Wild Card; Nefve and Broadus Top Seeds at ITF Grade 4 in Plantation

The next few days are the calm before the storm in collegiate tennis, with the Division I NCAA championships beginning Thursday at Wake Forest and extending through Memorial Day, while the Division III Championships at Claremont-Mudd-Scripps begin next Monday and last for six days.

That doesn't mean college tennis isn't in the news however, with coaching changes always surfacing at this time of year.  Pepperdine announced the hiring of Notre Dame associate head coach Adam Schaechterle to lead the men's program. Schaechterle joined the Fighting Irish in 2013, when Ryan Sachire was promoted to head coach after Bobby Bayliss retired. Prior to that, Schaechterle was a head coach at North Florida for two years, and was an assistant at his alma mater Northwestern prior to that.  The Notre Dame announcement on Schaechterle's departure is here.

Two fixtures in Division I coaching have retired, with Boise State's Greg Patton stepping down after 22 years as head coach of the men's program. The announcement refers to Patton as "beloved," which is not the usual language for any athletic department personnel release, but I can't imagine anyone quibbling with that assessment for Patton. I wrote a feature story on Patton many years ago for Tennis Magazine, and during my visit to Boise State, I was able to see for myself how integral Patton was to the athletic community there.  Patton is not leaving the area, but will move to the Bronco Athletic Association. Beck Roghaar, who played under Patton and returned to coach the women's team in 2011, has been promoted to Director of Tennis, but a men's head coach has not been named. The announcement ends with:
"Additional details regarding the staff for the Broncos’ men’s and women’s tennis programs will be forthcoming."

Parsa Nemati tweeted today that Harvard men's coach Dave Fish is stepping down after 42 years as head coach. Fish, a prime mover behind the Universal Tennis Rating system, is synonymous with Harvard Tennis and has spent decades working with the ITA to promote and improve the college game. There has been no official word from Harvard, but Nemati's tweet says associate head coach and alum Andrew Rueb will take over for Fish.

In other college news, the University of Georgia today announced that junior Emil Reinberg has been awarded a main draw wild card into July's BB&T Open in Atlanta. The ATP event regularly bestows a wild card to a top collegiate player in the Atlanta area and Reinberg, who is from Atlanta, is this year's recipient. He is currently listed as an alternate for the NCAA singles tournament later this month.

The final ITF Grade 4 in South Florida this month is in Plantation, where Axel Nefve and Savannah Broadus are the top seeds.  Rain has cancelled all girls first round matches for the day, with the boys main draw, plus two unfinished girls qualifying matches, on the order of play for this evening. 

American juniors are also in the draws of two major ITF events this week in Europe.  At the ITF Grade 2 in Austria the boys in the main draw are Eliot Spizzirri[6], Tomas Kopczynski, Will Grant[7], William Woodall[4] and Zane Khan. Niluka Midurawe and Elli Mandlik[3] are the US girls in the main draw.

At the ITF Grade 1 in Santa Croce Italy, the boys in the main draw are Govind Nanda, Drew Baird[3], Cannon Kingsley, Tyler Zink, Keenan Mayo and Emilio Nava[16].  Nicola Mejia of Colombia is the top seed. The US girls in the main draw are Peyton Stearns[13], Shelly Yaloz and qualifier Najah Dawson. Lulu Sun of Switzerland is the top seed.