Men’s and women’s tennis teams share coaches

By: Kara LaPoint

Tuesday, November 10, 2009 - 1:34 AM

Tennis player Florence De Vrye, left, coach Sylvain Malroux, middle, and player Augustin Myard, right, sit at the University of Nevada’s tennis courts. Both the men’s and women’s teams have dealt with the departure of former men’s tennis coach Chad Stoloff. Photo by Casey Durkin/Nevada Sagebrush

Tennis coaches Sylvain Malroux and Guillaume Tonelli already had their hands full last year in coaching the women’s team to a top-60 national ranking. But this year, their task doubled.

Malroux said on Tuesdays and Thursdays, he and Tonelli head out to the courts at 9 a.m. for their first practice and usually don’t leave until 4:30 or 5 p.m.

A few weeks into the school year, following the resignation of former men’s tennis coach Chad Stoloff, the women’s coaches, Malroux and Tonelli, were put in charge of the men’s team.

Malroux said that the men’s and women’s teams still practice separately, meaning two different practices for him and Tonelli, who is also trying to balance a full graduate course load and compete as well.

“It’s tough to be a coach/player/student,” Tonelli said. “I have a lot to do on the side.”

By next spring, given the large number of upperclassmen on the squads facing schedule conflicts due to mandatory classes, Malroux said the team might need three separate practices during the day.

Beyond the time constraints with practice, Malroux and Tonelli said many other elements of doubling up their coaching efforts have presented significant challenges. One of those is travel to competitions.

Between the two squads, Malroux and Tonelli are already juggling travel schedule and the teams haven’t even entered their regular-season schedule.

To reduce the number of challenges the teams are facing, Malroux said that he and Tonelli are hoping to get a third coach for the teams by January.

“It’s a challenge right now, but it’s possible (to make it easier) if we have someone else,” Malroux said.

Malroux cited several other challenges he and Tonelli are now facing, which he said would also be eased by the presence of a third coach.

One of those is not only divvying up attention between the two squads, but balancing the differences between coaching a men’s and women’s team.

“It is so challenging to go from one team to another,” Malroux said, “especially because to be good you need to do a lot of individual work.”

Malroux said that the women have been through a difficult time adjusting to the division of attention from their coaches.

“They were used to having two coaches’ full attention and now they have gone to the attention of two coaches over two different programs,” Malroux said.

But when Malroux is away with the men’s squad, for example, the women go from two coaches whose attention is divided to just one — another reason it would be helpful to the squad to have another coach coming in.

“Then they can be with different people at different times,” he said. “They may not have three coaches all the time, but they will have three different options … that way it suits everybody’s needs.”

Although the women have faced a difficult adjustment in losing the full attention of their coaches, the men have gone through major adjustments of their own, including a period of limbo when they were coachless at the beginning of the year.

Laurent Garcin, a senior on the team, said that period was extremely difficult.

“For the first three weeks, we just didn’t know anything about what was going on,” he said. “We had no practice and we didn’t know if we would be able to play.”

Another challenge Garcin said he and his teammates are facing is getting used to a new style of coaching and training, especially since five of them are seniors this year.

“It’s very different training … everything is different,” he said.

Malroux and Tonelli agreed that introducing a new coaching style has been a tough adjustment not only for the team, but for themselves as well.

“It’s a big transition,” Tonelli said. “We are still getting used to them too, especially since we picked them up so far into the semester.”

But Malroux said that although the transition from coaching women to coaching men is vast, it is also complementary in many ways.

“It’s actually a fun situation,” he said. “It’s tough right now, but once it’s all in place in the spring, I think it could be extremely rewarding.”

Malroux and Tonelli said the new structure has brought the teams together in many ways.

“They were not used to doing much together,” Malroux said. “But now they always say good luck when they leave and always ask us how the other team did, so that is nice.”

Ultimately, Malroux said that as long as he and Tonelli can get the help they need, he thinks the changes are a good thing for both programs, for which he still has high goals this year.

He said he hopes to have both teams ranked by the end of the season (inside the top-64 nationally), and for the men to qualify for the International Tennis Association Indoor Tournament, a feat the women accomplished last year for the first time in school history.

Of the women, he said, “They really now believe they can be successful and win a lot of matches and beat just about anyone.”

And of his men’s squad, which he said is brimming with potential: “It’s a matter of confidence; that’s the only thing they need to change.”

But regardless of the outcome, Malroux emphasized that it’s the players who make the challenges worth overcoming.

“We are doing this for the players more than anything. Especially the seniors,” he said. “To send them out on top would be the best gift to give them.”

Kara LaPoint can be reached at sports@nevadasagebrush.com.