Decade of dominance: Colin Foster sets WSU women’s tennis’ career coaching wins record
In a decade since accepting his first head coaching job at Wichita State, Colin Foster has racked up the most victories in the women’s tennis program’s history.
After the Shockers picked up wins over Nebraska and Creighton earlier this week, Foster moved to 179 wins in 10 seasons, surpassing previous record-holder Lee Stafford, who compiled 178 wins in 16 seasons throughout the 90s and early 2000s.
“Of course you have to look down the road with things you want to develop and recruiting you’ve got to have a long-term vision, but I haven’t ever really taken the time since I got here to think about a record that I wanted to set,” Foster said. “I’ve always preached to my players to take it one day at a time and one practice, one drill, one match at a time. That’s how I’ve approached my career.”
Foster inherited a strong program from Chris Young in 2009, then elevated the Shockers to an even higher level. After WSU won eight conference championships in previous 24 years, Foster guided the Shockers to eight straight Missouri Valley Conference championships and NCAA Tournament berths from 2009-16.
But his crowning accomplishment came last spring when the Shockers defeated Syracuse 4-1 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. It was the first NCAA win in Foster’s career and just the second in program history, with the other coming in 2007.
“A record like this comes from a different team each year and I’m really proud of every team I’ve had here,” Foster said. “If you are doing a good job, then the wins will accumulate over the years. It’s certainly special for the girls and a credit to their success. We’ve been able to maintain a pretty strong level over these years and even in what looked like rebuilding years, we were still at a pretty high level.”
This season’s Shockers are now 6-4 after winning their fifth straight match in a 4-2 victory over No. 39 SMU at Wichita Country Club on Friday. WSU will look to keep its momentum going against another American Athletic Conference foe on Sunday, as the Shockers host Cincinnati at Wichita Country Club for a 9 a.m. match.
WSU has won the available doubles point in eight of nine matches, thanks to the strength of its second and third doubles teams with the pair of Marta Bellucco and Sandra Honigova at No. 2 and LingWei Kong and Ting-Ya Hsu at No. 3. Honigova, ranked No. 118 in singles, has a 6-3 record in the No. 1 singles slot, while Esther Thebault, Bellucco, Kong, Sarvinoz Saidhujava and Hsu round out the singles lineup.
“Colin is a really good coach because he helps push ourselves to be 100 percent,” Saidhujava said. “We never feel any pressure from him when we’re on the court and that makes us feel better. He really helps us out and makes us believe in ourselves. He gives us confidence.”
This story was originally published February 22, 2019 at 3:30 PM.
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