Head coach Cris James enters his fourth season at Illinois State as the reigning MVC Coach of the Year after leading the Redbirds to their first regular-season conference title since 2006. James took over the head coaching position prior to the 2007-08 season, and has already established a winning mentality both on the court and in the classroom.

James brings a wealth of tennis experience as a player, coach and instructor at the junior, collegiate and professional levels to Illinois State’s men’s tennis program. Hard work, dedication and passion have helped James excel, both as a player and coach.

Achieving success early in his career, James won a junior national championship. The Canadian native enrolled at Purdue in 1995. As a four-year letter winner for the Boilermakers, James was an All-Big Ten selection, Academic All-Big Ten honoree and the team’s most valuable player in each of his last three seasons. In addition, James served as team captain and achieved an NCAA ranking of No. 26 in singles and No. 7 in doubles. James graduated from Purdue in 1999, with a degree in political science.

Following his outstanding career at Purdue, James entered the pro circuit. James won three ATP doubles tournaments and earned professional rankings in both singles and doubles.

Donjuan is in his 13th season at LCC with a five-time (2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009) No. 1 national men’s tennis team and a No. 11 national women’s tennis team in Division I junior college.

The native Texan, who took over the tennis team in 1997, has had the privilege of coaching four No. 1 nationally ranked doubles teams, five No. 1 singles players, more than 30 All-Americans and nine ITA regional winners.

He was honored as Region XIV Men’s Tennis Coach of the Year in 2000, ITA Coach of the Year in 2004, the ITA Coach of the Year in 2008, and the Max Grubbs Coach of the Year in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009. Coach Donjuan also was honored as Coach of the Year by the Laredo Morning Times in 2005 and 2010, and was inducted into the Laredo Latin-American International Sports Hall of Fame in 2007.

Michael Kossoff is director of tennis for multiple SPORTIME locations in NY. He is one of the nations brightest young stars in junior coaching. As a Division 1 college standout Mike led his Bowling Green University team to two MAC conference championships. Mike was ranked in the top 100 in the country as a junior and has extensive experience playing and coaching in ITF tournaments around the world.

His exceptional knowledge of the game, boundless energy and positive attitude instill confidence in every one of his players. Mike currently coaches an impressive stable of SPORTIME’s nationally ranked juniors. Mike has been part of team Tecnifibre for the past five years and uses the Tecnifibre T-Flash 315 Speedflex

Pablo Pires de Almeida is in his 3rd year as the assistant coach for the University of San Francisco where was a four-year letter winner for the program from 2001-05. During his playing career he was an All-West Coast Conference selection 4 times, including a first team singles selection in 2005. He also earned an all-time Division I national singles rank of 61st and doubles ranking of 70th in the Division 1 rankings.

Pires de Almeida went on to play on the professional circuit where he amassed a career ATP ranking of 1461 in singles and 930 in doubles. Pires de Almeida got to the doubles Quarter Final of the Aptos Challenger twice and made three Semi Finals in Futures tournaments in Hawaii, Mexico and Brazil. In Singles Pires de Almeida recorded wins over players in the top 100 in the world ranks.

Following his collegiate and professional career, Pires de Almeida went on to become a High Performance Coach. His coaching efforts include overseeing the USTA national team traveling to the Boys’ 16 Winter Super National Championships and the Boys’ 18 National Open Championships. Pires de Almeida is a USTA Northern California High Performance coach and runs a High Performance Training Facility at the California Tennis Club with Director Steve Jackson. For the past 2 years Pires de Almeida has coached the Northern California Maze Cup team against Southern California.

Ryan spent three years as an assistant at San Diego State where his responsibilities included recruiting, developing practice and competition schedules and managing budget operations. Prior to his stint at San Diego State, he spent two years playing on the USTA, ITF and ATP professional tours. He also spent time during the past year coaching privately in the Rancho Sante Fe, Calif.

Redondo was a three time letter winner at San Diego State from 2002-04. He earned All-America honors as a sophomore and junior and is one of the top players in Aztec history. In 2003, he earned a spot in the NCAA Doubles Finals with partner Oliver Maiberger. He began his collegiate at Pepperdine, transferring to the Aztec program for his sophomore season.

As an Aztec, Redondo collected many accolades. In 2002, his first season after transferring from Pepperdine, Redondo teamed with Maiberger to reach the quarterfinals of the NCAA Doubles Championship and helped the team win the National Collegiate Indoor Championship, the program’s lone national championship. In 2002-03, Redondo and Maiberger posted an outstanding 31-8 record, including 21 wins against ranked opponents. They finished the season ranked No. 2 in the country after winning four matches in four days to reach the NCAA Doubles Finals where they lost to Illinois’ Brian Wilson and Rajeev Ram. Redondo earned five All-Mountain West Conference selections, and still holds the program record for double victories with 59 while teaming with Maiberger. He graduated from San Diego State with a degree in religious studies.

Simon Earnshaw is the head coach of the highly successful Armstrong Atlantic State University tennis programs. In 2010 he guided the women’s tennis program to its 3rd straight NCAA Div. II National Championship. On the men’s side he guided the team to back to back NCAA Div. II National Championship in 2008 and 2009, becoming just the second program in tennis history to accomplish that feat.

In all Earnshaw has led his teams to six National Championships in 2005, 2008, 2009 and 2010 for both men’s and women’s programs combined. He has won three ITA National Women’s Coach of the Year awards, in 2009, 2006 and 2004, and Earnshaw has six times been named the ITA Mid-Atlantic Region Women’s Coach of the Year and eight times earned the Peach Belt Conference Women’s Tennis Coach of the Year award. On the men’s side he has been named the ITA Mid-Atlantic Region Men’s Coach of the Year in 2005, 2008 and 2009, and his men’s players have earned 20 ITA All-America honors in ten seasons.

West Nott enters his fourth season as assistant coach at USC, honored as the 2009 ITA West Region Assistant Coach of the Year in his second season with the Women of Troy. He came to Troy after serving as a volunteer assistant with the Washington men’s program, following a successful collegiate playing career at Georgia Tech.

Nott also served as the coach for the SoCal Section Junior Fed Cup team, which consists of the top six SoCal Juniors, in 2009 and 2010.
Prior to his arrival in Los Angeles, Nott was a volunteer assistant coach for the University of Washington. During his coaching career, Nott has competed in Davis Cup competition as a member of the Pacific Oceania team, and claimed victory in the deciding singles match against Pakistan at the 2006 Davis Cup. In college, Nott played one year at Florida before transferring to Georgia Tech. In three seasons, Nott rose to No. 5 on the all-time career singles wins list and reached No. 2 all-time in single-season doubles wins.

In his junior career, Nott was consistently ranked in the nation’s top-10 for his age group. He was consistently ranked No. 1 in the Midwest Section and won the US National Indoor Junior Championships in 1998. Nott also spent six months as the full-time coach for Canadian Rebecca Marino, who is now ranked in the top 100 WTA.