Per Nilsson hired as women's tennis coach

GAINESVILLE, Fla. The University of Florida women's tennis program moved from the AIAW classification to the NCAA in 1981. Three years later, the Gators made a coaching change and hired Andy Brandi, who won three national championships and 13 Southeastern titles over the next 17 seasons. When Brandi retired, he was replaced by Roland Thornqvist, who won four NCAAs and 12 SECs in his 23 years before resigning earlier this month.

That's 40 years, seven national championships and 24 league crowns.

“And only two coaches,” said Per Nilsson.

Nilsson is now making three and his plan is to be as successful as his two predecessors after being named to the UF post on Tuesday. Nilsson, 52, comes from Pepperdine, where in his ten seasons his teams won every possible West Coast Conference regular season and tournament title, reached the NCAA Tournament quarterfinals seven times, the semifinals twice and in 2021 to a played national championship.

On Tuesday, Nilsson spoke with UF's interim coach Jeremy Bayonwho will be appointed as head coach together with assistant Samantha Mannix. He is expected in the city on Monday to meet his new team.

“I like competitive pressure,” said Nilsson, a native of Lund, Sweden, with a career coaching record of 306-124. “To win you have to be surrounded by people who want to win as much as you do and the people of Florida want to win. That kind of pressure is good. Our players will put pressure on them too, and that's one of the things we do. ” I'm looking forward to it the most.”

Nilsson averaged 22.5 wins over his nine full seasons with the Blue Wave women (one Covid-affected season was limited to 12 games) and finished with a 211-48 mark while facing some of the toughest non-conference schedules in the country played. Previously, Nilsson spent seven seasons as the men's coach at his alma mater, Mississippi State. He still sits at No. 10 on the all-time wins list in both singles and doubles, where he led the Bulldogs to four NCAA berths and them to as high as a No. 11 final ranking twice.

He brings a track record of success and SEC pedigree to a Florida program looking to return to national prominence. The Gators haven't won the SEC since 2016 and last won the league title in 2017.

“We are pleased to welcome Per, who has proven to be a highly competitive, development-oriented coach,” said Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin. “He brings a track record of success, a broad range of experience and a proven ability to bring out the best in student-athletes both on and off the field. Per embraces the challenge of leading a championship-rich program and we are excited to have him and his family join us here at UF.”

It would take an opportunity like this to uproot Nilsson and his family wife Beth, who is from St. Augustine, and six-year-old son Reef from the beauty of Malibu, California.

“I mean, I really thought I was going to stay [there] and retire. It has been a great place for us,” Nilsson said. “But because of Florida tradition, we had to sit down and decide what was best for all of us. Career-wise it's a big step and I'm very excited about it.”

The women's tennis community should be just as excited, according to former UF standout, two-time national champion and Hall-of-Famer Lauren Embree, who retired from the professional circuit in 2017 to take the assistant coaching job at Pepperdine.

“He is not only a great coach, but the best person I have ever been around,” Embree said. “I'm almost as excited for him as if I were to get the job.”

Embree was a novice coach when she went west, but got a crash course in dealing with the daily challenges of dealing with student-athletes and their multiple personalities.

One of those players, Ashley Lahey, was the NCAA singles runner-up in 2018 as a sophomore, then spent almost her entire 2020 senior season ranked No. 1 in the country, only to have the NCAA tournament wiped out by Covid.

“He develops such incredible relationships with his players and gets them to buy in and play super hard because they love him,” Embree said. “There was no reason for Pepperdine to be good against Stanford, UCLA, USC and Cal, but he was there and played for championships every year.”

Nilsson cited hard work, player development and maximizing potential as his core philosophies.

“Sounds lame, I know, but it's really not rocket science,” he said. “It's not a big team, maybe seven to 10 individuals, so you can dive into each team and ask, 'How can I work with this? How can I encourage or motivate this?' That's really my core belief and it took me a while to get good at it. And I'm very competitive, I want to compete against the best.”

Well, then he's come to the right place. Three of the last four NCAA champions (Texas 2021-22, Texas A&M 2024) are in the competition, as are two of the last four runners-up (Oklahoma 2022 and Georgia 2024).

When the Longhorns won the first of those back-to-back titles, they had to defeat the Blue Wave in an epic 4-3 NCAA finals game in Orlando.

His first UF team returns five players from a squad that went 17-9, qualified for NCAA play as a No. 15 seed, but was eliminated on home court by Miami in the second round. The Gators have played in five fall events so far, the last two under Bayon.

Nilsson expected to be with the team when it heads to the ITA Conference Masters Championships, which take place Nov. 7-10 in San Diego.

“Clearly the challenge is in the middle of a [fall] Almost halfway through the season, trying to fit in with the team and gain their trust,” said Nilsson. “They will probably be a bit strange, but we will make it work. It was an opportunity that was impossible to refuse.”