Florida Men's Tennis will start the fall season with two new assistant coaches. Matt Cloer and Scott Perelman have moved on. Cloer will be heading back to the USTA training site at Lake Nona, and Scott Perelman has taken an assistant coach's position at national power TCU.
Thanks for the update. This is the best place to get tennis updates. What are your thoughts on the program right now? Both assistant coaches leaving. Couple of players leaving in the portal. Nate is not a big loss but was good for depth. Kim seemed to have a lot of potential to be a 1st or 2nd line player for a couple years. Lots of high UTR rated players transferring from other programs but none seem to be coming to Florida. I know UTR is not the end all when it comes to player evaluation but the top players all have UTRs around 13.5 and up. Florida is full of a lot of young guys in the 12s. Not going to win a lot of matches with those players. I not very familiar with Steinberg's history, but how is he at bringing in high rated international players or transfers. Does he normally bring in freshmen and keep them for 3-4 years and develop them? From an outsider's perspective it seems Florida is falling behind other top programs and other SEC programs with the players being brought in. I know it's only year 1 for him and he seemed successful at Michigan. Again, thanks for all the information you provide. This is the only place I can get any Florida tennis information.
You posed quite a few questions. I did not consider last year the first for Coach Steinberg. This coming year is the beginning of his tenure at Florida in my opinion. He got such a late start recruiting last year by the time he was inked as our next head coach. Even though, coach brought in a solid group headed by Jeremy Jin. JanMagnus Johnson was another great coup but due to injury he did not play much of a roll last season. He will return next season as he will be awarded a medical hardship and be eligible for one more year. Third Billy Ganesan decommited from his original commitment and signed late with Florida. Ganesan opened a lot of eyes early this past spring and then was injured and had to gut out the second part of the dual match season. Kevin Edengren from Sweden was another late addition last season. He grew up on clay and needed a couple of months to acclimate to hard courts. I believe Kevin will be a solid collegiate player with another year under his belt. Yes, the loss of Aidan Kim hurts as he has moved on to Ohio State for next season. Nate Bonetto graduated with his degree this summer and his experience will be missed. We have signed three new players for next year and one of them is Ben Weintraub who is a bit older than the usual freshmen because he is from Israel and fulfilled his military training before returning to tennis. Ben will be heard from early next season. I would be remiss if I didn't mention Tanapatt Nirundorn whose leadership and outstanding doubles play will add another dimension to the 2024-25 class. Two new coaches have just been named to take the place of Mat Cloer and Scott Perelman. Check out both of these coaches, as I feel Coach Steinberg has hit a home run with both of these incoming assistants. When Florida was searching for a head coach last summer, after the resignation of Bryan Shelton I compiled a list of coaches I would like to see take the helm of our program. Coach Adam Steinberg was at the top of that list. He is a proven veteran winner and will guide our Gators back to the top ten. Will it be next season? I doubt it, but the team will take another step forward as we rebuild the program. A complete rebuild takes time, but we are moving in the right direction. I write weekly newsletters to former Gator men's tennis lettermen and our boosters. Send me your email through private messaging here and I will send you a few samples. If you wish to receive all of them throughout the season, you will need to join Gator Men's Tennis Boosters, but I would be happy to send you a few past issues as a sample of what to expect.
Thanks again for the information. I just saw they hired Anthony Rossi as an assistant. Seems like a great resume. Looking forward to watching these young guys develop.
