GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The University of Florida women's tennis program went from AIAW classification to NCAA in 1981. Three years later, the Gators made a coaching change and hired Andy Brandi, who over the next 17 seasons won three national championships and 13 Southeastern titles. When Brandi retired, he was replaced by Roland Thornqvist, who over his 23 years won four NCAAs and 12 SECs before stepping down earlier this month.
That's 40 years, seven national championships and 24 league crowns.
"And just two coaches," Per Nilsson said.
Per Nilsson
Nilsson now makes three and his plan is to be as wildly successful as his two predecessors after being named to the UF post Tuesday. Nilsson, 52, comes by way of Pepperdine, where his teams won every possible West Coast Conference regular-season and tournament title over his 10 seasons, reached the NCAA Tournament quarterfinals seven times, the semifinals twice and played for a national championship in 2021.
On Tuesday, Nilsson spoke with UF interim coach
Jeremy Bayon, who will be retained as associate head coach, along with assistant
Samantha Mannix. He's expected in town Monday to meet with 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 around people who want to win as much as you do and the people at Florida want to win. That kind of pressure is good. Our players will have pressure, as well, and that's one of the things I'm looking forward to the most."
Nilsson averaged 22.5 wins over his nine full seasons with the Blue Wave women (one Covid-impacted season was limited to 12 matches) and finished with a 211-48 mark while playing some of the most difficult non-conference schedules in the country. Before that, Nilsson was men's coach for seven seasons at his alma mater of Mississippi State – he still ranks No. 10 on the all-time career victory list in both singles and doubles – where he led the Bulldogs to four NCAA berths and twice guided them to as high as a No. 11 final ranking.
He brings a track record for success, as well as SEC pedigree, to a Florida program that is looking to climb back into national prominence. The Gators have not won the SEC since 2016 and last won the national title in 2017.
"We're thrilled to welcome Per, who has proven to be a highly competitive, developmental-focused coach," Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin said. "He brings a track record of success, a wide range of experience and a demonstrated ability to bring out the best in student-athletes on and off the court. 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 was going to take an opportunity like this one 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'd stay [there] and retire. It's been an amazing place for us," Nilsson said. "But Florida's tradition, the whole thing, we had to sit down and decide what was best for all of us. Career-wise, it's a big move and I'm very excited about it."
Nilsson and Lauren Embree during their Blue Wave days.
The women's tennis community should be equally 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 an assistant coach's job at Pepperdine.
"He's not only a great coach, but he's the best human I've ever been around," Embree said. "I'm almost as excited for him as if I got the job."
Embree was a novice coach when she went west, but got a crash course in how to navigate the daily challenges of managing student-athletes and their multiple personalities.
One of those players, Ashley Lahey, was the NCAA singles runner-up as a sophomore in 2018, then spent nearly her entire 2020 senior season ranked No. 1 in the nation, only to have the NCAA Tournament wiped out by Covid.
"He develops such unbelievable 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 any good competing against Stanford, UCLA, USC and Cal, but he was right there, playing for championships every year."
Nilsson listed hard work, player development and maximizing potential as his core philosophies.
Nilsson has a reputation for developing and motivating players. Photo by Jamie Schwaberow/NCAA Photos.
"Sounds cheesy, 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 dig into each one and ask, 'How can I work with this one? How can I encourage this one or motivate that one?' 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 coming to the right place. Three of last four NCAA champions (Texas 2021-22, Texas A&M 2024) are in the league, as well as 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 needed to beat the Blue Wave in an epic 4-3 NCAA finals match at Orlando.
Pepperdine's 2021 NCAA runner-up squad (Nilsson, far right).
His first UF team has five players back from a squad that went 17-9, qualified for the NCAA play as the No. 15 seed, but was eliminated on the home court by Miami in second-round play. The Gators have played in five fall events to date, the last two under Bayon.
Nilsson expected to be with the team when it heads to the ITA Conference Masters Championships, set for Nov. 7-10 in San Diego.
"Obviously, the challenge is going to be showing up in the middle of a [fall] season that's almost halfway done and trying to fit in with the team and gain their trust," Nilsson said. "They're probably going to be weirded out a little bit, but we'll make it work. It was an opportunity that was just impossible to turn down."
Email senior writer Chris Harry at chrish@gators.ufl.edu
