Samantha Asch, Kimmy Guerin and Luisa Fernandez will join the Deacs in the fall
Jeffrey T. Wyshner recently completed his second season as the Wake Forest head women's tennis coach.
In his first two years at the helm of the Demon Deacons, Wyshner has guided a number of players to impressive individual achievements. The doubles team of Kayla Duncan and Kathryn Talbert rose as high as No. 7 in the national rankings, making them the third-highest ranked doubles team in school history. The tandem reached the doubles quarterfinals of the 2011 ITA All-American Championships and advanced to the second round of the 2011 NCAA Doubles Championships
In 2011, Martina Pavelec peaked at No. 24 in the national singles rankings, the highest mark for a Demon Deacon singles player since 2005. Duncan took over at the top position with a strong singles performance in 2012, reaching as high as No. 63 in the national rankings. Both players earned All-ACC honors.
Despite dealing with a number of key injuries during his first two years at Wake Forest that hindered team success, Wyshner (pronounced Y-shner) has still been able to attract top recruits to the Demon Deacons program. His 2012 fall recruiting class of blue-chip recruit Kasey Gardiner, along with Xue Zhang and Andrea Retolaza Andrade was ranked No. 25 in the country in the Tennis Recruiting Network's winter rankings. That came on the heels of his 2011 incoming class of Karen Forman, Rebecca Siegler and Zane Zarina was ranked as the sixth-best in the Atlantic Coast Conference and 30th-best nationally.
Wyshner (came to Wake Forest from the University of Akron, where he was the head women's tennis coach from 2006-10.
Under Wyshner's tutelage, the Akron tennis program reached never-before-seen heights and national recognition. In 2009-10, Wyshner led the Zips to one of their best seasons in program history. Akron won its first 15 matches and at one point was the only undefeated Division I squad in the country. The team posted a 19-3 overall record and finished second in the Mid-American Conference - their best-ever conference result. In 2008-09, the program had its first winning season since 1996 and featured the first-ever freshman to win the MAC Player of the Year Award (Zara Harutyunyan).
Wyshner built a reputation as a top-notch recruiter at Akron, as his incoming freshman class for 2009-10 was voted the 33rd best in the nation and the third best among mid-majors. That accomplishment came on the heels of the having the 34th best incoming class in 2008-09, (No. 12 among mid-majors). Both years, Akron's incoming class had been the highest ranked in the MAC - after the program had never before had a ranked recruiting class.
In January 2007, Wyshner completed the USA Tennis High Performance Coaching Program, a highly selective education program designed by the USTA to offer, "one of the highest-quality coaching education experiences in the world," and whose graduates are meant to be a, "publicly recognized group of America's leading coaches." Generally restricted to junior development coaches, Wyshner was one of six collegiate coaches selected to the class of 30. In the summer of 2009, Wyshner was selected for two USTA Continuing Education Programs for graduates of the High Performance Coaching Program, one at the Girl's 18s National Championships and a particularly selective program held in conjunction with the 2009 U.S. Open.
Prior to coming to Akron, Wyshner had been head coach of both the men's and women's tennis programs at Fairfield University in Fairfield, Conn., for five seasons (2002-06) and the women's tennis head coach at Manhattan College in Bronx, N.Y., from 1994-2001.
In his five seasons at Fairfield (2001-02 through 2005-06), Wyshner quickly brought both the men's and women's teams to the upper echelon of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference with one championship season, one second-place finish and five third-place marks. His successes earned him MAAC Women's Coach-of-the-Year honors in 2004, when the squad advanced to the program's first-ever Division I NCAA Championship appearance. In 2005, he earned the MAAC Men's Coach-of-the-Year award, after the team equaled a program-best 12 wins and notched a third-place finish in the league standings. He is the only coach in MAAC history to have been named Coach-of-the-Year for both men's and women's squads.
During his last season at Fairfield, Wyshner was honored as the New England Sectional winner of the USTA/ITA Community Service Award. The award goes to a coach who made significant contributions in developing community-based tennis programs through community centers, schools, parks, community tennis associations, inner-city, suburban or rural programs.
In eight years as head coach of the women's team at Manhattan College (1993-94 through 2000-01) he became the program's winningest coach, posting a 70-54 overall record and a 33-15 mark against MAAC opponents. The highlight of his stay came in 2000-01 when the Jaspers went 13-4 overall (6-1 MAAC) and fought their way to their first-ever appearance in the MAAC championship match.
Wyshner's teams have also historically excelled in the classroom having now received the ITA's All-Academic Team honor eight times (four at Manhattan, two at Fairfield, once at Wake Forest and once at Akron). Furthermore, his athletes have received either the ITA Scholar-Athlete All-American Award or their respective conference all-academic team recognition 83 times.
A native of Canaan, Conn., Wyshner graduated cum laude from Yale with a degree in economics and mathematics. He was a two-time recipient of the university's Junior Varsity Tennis Award, given to the individual who through his dedication and ability contributed the most to the program. Wyshner also earned a master's of arts degree in educational administration from the Teachers College at Columbia in 1996, and his juris doctorate from Columbia Law School in 2000. He is a member of the New York State Bar Association. Wyshner began his coaching career in 1992 at the St. Paul's School in Concord, N.H. While a teaching intern in the mathematics department there, Wyshner served as a boy's and girl's varsity tennis coach, a girl's junior varsity soccer coach and a boy's varsity basketball coach. In 1993, Wyshner started a four-year stint in the mathematics department at Horace Mann High School in Riverdale, N.Y. Two of his girls' basketball teams were ranked in the top five in the state's Class D. In 1999, while in his final year of law school, Wyshner took over as Manhattan's director of sports media relations, a post he held until leaving for Fairfield in 2001. During the summer and fall semesters of 2008, Wyshner returned to the classroom, this time at the University of Akron, as a teacher of Calculus with Business Applications.
Wyshner, a Level I member of the United States Professional Tennis Association (USPTA), and his wife Jennifer have two children, a 4-year-old son Landon and a 1-year-old daughter, Sophie.
