Women’s Tennis Coaching Change

This morning, Vanderbilt announced that Geoff Macdonald would be retiring as the women’s tennis head coach after 26 years. He remains on staff as an assistant coach.

Macdonald is of course a first-ballot Vanderbilt Hall of Fame entry who experienced no drop-off with age. He led women’s tennis to the national championship in 2015, Final Fours in 2016 and 2017, and a national runner-up in 2018. The Commodores won the SEC championship in 2017 and 2018 as well. He leaves the head coaching position with an amazing 517-189 record at Vanderbilt.

Aleke Tsoubanos takes over as the team’s head coach. She’s been on the staff for 13 years (how time flies), and hasn’t been a stranger to NCAA success herself. She was a three-time All-American, and played on national runner-up, Final Four, and Elite Eight teams from 2001-04. Of course, she was also an assistant coach during the 2015-18 run.

With the pandemic still sweeping around the country, I don’t think any of us really know what to expect right now. If Vanderbilt is able to play this spring, they’ll have a young roster with only six players, due to a couple of recent transfers. Carolyn Campana transferred to Wake, where her younger sister also plays, and Georgia Drummy left for Duke. Both players were major contributors, and had been ranked in the Top 25 nationally before everything got shut down by COVID-19. It may take a couple of seasons to fully reload, although they’ll still be competitive.

In the meantime, congratulations to Aleke Tsoubanos on her promotion.