Tennessee Volunteers Tennis

Sam Winterbotham was formerly the head coach of the Colorado Buffaloes men's tennis team from 2002–2006. After the 2006 season Colorado cut the men's tennis team due to budget constrains. Winterbotham was then hired by UT in the summer of 2006. From 2007-2015 Winterbotham led Tennessee to nine consecutive NCAA tournament appearances, including six appearances in the NCAA round of 16, three appearances in the NCAA Quarterfinals, and one national championship appearance where they lost in a close match to USC 4-2.[2] Winterbotham became the first head coach at Tennessee to win consecutive SEC regular season championships in 2010 and 2011. Winterbotham also led UT to a SEC tournament title in 2010. In 2014 Winterbotham coached doubles pair Mikelis Libietis and Hunter Reese all the way to the 2014 NCAA doubles title. After 11 years of coaching UT, as well as a 217-104 match record, Sam Winterbotham was fired on May 4, 2017 at the conclusion of the 2017 season. The Vols had struggled and missed the NCAA Tournament for two consecutive years in 2016 and 2017. In Winterbothams last two years at Tennessee he had a combined 25-31 record and the Vols were 3-21 in SEC play.[3]

Winterbotham was replaced by long term assistant and former NCAA Singles Champion at Tennessee Chris Woodruff. In Woodruff's first season as head coach he led the Vols to a 21-9 record and 4th place in the SEC regular season standings with an 8-4 conference record. Tennessee made the semifinals of the SEC tournament losing to Texas A&M 4-0. The Vols returned to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2015 beating UNC Wilmington 4-0 in the first round before losing to North Carolina 4-0 in the NCAA round of 32.[4]