After coming off an incredible season last year, the ACU Tennis team promoted John Walker director of men’s & women’s tennis as the new head coach.

Last year Walker was voted the leagues head coach of the year after taking the ACU women’s team to a 10-1 conference record. This conference record was the best since the 2011 season when ACU went 7-0 against the Lone Star Conference.

“We expect to be right back in the conference tournament and expect to get to that next step of winning conference allowing us to compete in the NCAA tournament,” Walker said. “You learn from the past to advance, and you do that by adding addition and improvements.”

Walker’s philosophy for this season is to work harder on unity and getting to the next step that ACU missed last season allowing them to advance to the NCAA tournament. Walker has built up a reputation at the ACU tennis program and had a 643-251 as the head coach of the women’s team for 15 years.

“[The team is] just going in with no expectations and that’s the best thing we can do,” Jonathan Sheehy, senior from Arlington said. “We just have to let our team believe we can win. If they believe it the sky’s the limit.”

Both Sheehy and Walker said the main thing that the team is working on this year is finding a passion for improving and building unity between new team members. They both expect to practice harder than last year and learn from their mistakes, which they hope will take them to the tournament in the spring.

With the results of last season, Walker has a lot in store for both the men’s and women’s team. The first men’s and women’s tennis matches will be Sept. 13-15 in Midland.