Ole Miss Women’s Tennis head coach Grant Roberts, in his first year at the helm of the program, led Emily Welker and Andrea Nova to a doubles championship at the ITA Southern Regional last weekend.
Roberts joined the Ole Miss staff in 2018 and has worked as an assistant and associate head coach. Before coaching, he played tennis at the University of Kentucky, where he holds the school record for most matches clinched.
Sports have always been a huge part of Roberts’ life. He grew up with two parents who were collegiate athletes.
“So (my father) actually is from Australia and came over to play college tennis. He played at (Middle Tennessee State University,)” Roberts said in an interview with The Daily Mississippian. “My mom was also an athlete. She played basketball at Alabama, so we just played all kinds of sports growing up.”
Tennis came into the picture for Roberts when he was around 10 years old. He was trained under his father, but as he grew older, he and his dad began to butt heads.
“My dad was my coach when I was pretty young, when I first started my early career,” Roberts said. “And then when I got into my teenage years, I think we started fighting a lot, like on court, and I started working with a guy named Cedric Kauffmann.”
Kauffmann was a noteworthy player in his own right. He was inducted into the University of Kentucky Hall of Fame — the first tennis player to achieve this honor. He joined the Wildcats’ coaching staff in 2005. In 2009, he became an associate head coach, and he received the head coaching position in 2012, a position he still holds.
Roberts stuck with Kauffmann and chose to play for him in college. At Kentucky, Roberts soared. While he was a player, the Wildcats advanced to the SEC Championship in 2012 and reached the Sweet 16 three times.
After his playing career ended, Roberts had the opportunity to work alongside his mentor and coach as a graduate assistant. Even in this role, Roberts still had much to learn from Kauffmann.
“When I started working with (Kauffman), when I got to the coaching side … I learned a lot about how to look at … the game of tennis from that perspective and how to develop players, not just looking at yourself,” Roberts said.
After three years as a graduate assistant at Kentucky, Roberts worked as an assistant coach with the women’s team at the University of Colorado Boulder for a few months. But when he received an offer from the University of Mississippi, he did not hesitate.
“At the end of the day, my goal was to get back to the SEC, a school like Ole Miss,” Roberts said. “I got the call. I was like, ‘Done. I’m in. Let’s go,’” Roberts said.
Then-head coach Mark Beyers, the winningest coach in program history, taught Roberts several things about coaching — not the least of those lessons being on the difference between leading women and men.
“The game of tennis is a little bit different in women’s — they play a little bit of a different style. You have different strengths, and you have to kind of relearn a little bit of that stuff,” Roberts said. “Mark was absolutely phenomenal for that. Just teaching me all that, teaching me how to run a team.”
Roberts spent eight years coaching under Beyers. As Beyers inched toward retirement, he gradually began to up Roberts’ responsibilities, because the old coach wanted Roberts to be his successor.
“I think his goal was for me to kind of one day take over for him, and so he started giving me each year a little bit more to do,” Roberts said. “ … There’s so much more behind the scenes that you never would know as an assistant, or as you’re getting into this, or even as a fan, you don’t really see what all goes behind it. So he did a great job of making me feel like I was sort of in a head coaching role this whole time, you know, and taking on those responsibilities.”
Roberts is particularly proud of the willingness of each member of the Ole Miss coaching staff to spend time hitting with players individually. This is a concept that Roberts integrated from Beyers’ program; the new coach believes that he will find success by modeling some of his coaching techniques off his predecessor.
“We took a lot of what Mark (Beyers) does and just made it a little bit of our own, but continued his legacy a little bit,” Roberts said. “He’s had such a successful career, I’d kind of be stupid not to do that.”
This implementation of past strategies is aimed not just at establishing strong bonds between players and coaches but also at supporting Roberts’ own longevity as a coach. He hopes to remain in the Ole Miss program as long as Beyers did.
“That would be, that would be ideal for me,” Roberts said. “I mean, (Beyers) was able to stay at one school, Ole Miss, for his whole career, which is something I think is pretty rare these days. Any career that looks similar to Beyers’, I’d be very thrilled with it.”
No matter how hard he works, Roberts understands he will not be able to find success alone. He called the Ole Miss community to action, encouraging fans to show up to matches and support the team.
“Watch the girls play (in) the spring, and you’ll see what we’re all about, you know, see how much these ladies have put in, how much work they put in,” Roberts said. “We’re excited — come out, make some noise.”
