Mark Booras

Mark Booras enters his tenth season as head coach of the Tulane men's tennis program heading into the 2018-19 campaign.

Booras was named head coach in 2008 and was given the reigns to guide Tulane back to prominence following a hiatus caused by Hurricane Katrina. Since, Booras has implemented a steady growth in the program and has now returned it to a top-30 team in the country with two straight appearances in the NCAA Championships.

Since his arrival on the uptown New Orleans campus, Booras has taken the program from literally nothing back into the national rankings and the NCAA Tournament. When he took over in 2008, Tulane had not had a men's tennis program for three years and when the Green Wave completed the 2017 spring season, the program was ranked 30th in the nation.

It didn't even take Booras that long to have the Green Wave back in the national rankings. Tulane peaked as high as 63rd during the spring of 2012 behind the performance of first-team All-Conference USA selection Idan Mark and his 17 singles wins.

Booras and Tulane piggybacked on the success of the 12-win dual season in 2012 and carried it into the 2013 where the Green Wave collected 12 wins again, peaked in the rankings at No. 55 and finished the year with a No. 69 ITA ranking. Tulane was led by C-USA Freshman of the Year Dominik Koepfer's 17 dual match singles wins.

The Green Wave once again built on the success of the previous season in 2014 by posting 15 victories and earning a final national ranking of 65th. Chi-Shan Jao claimed Tulane's second consecutive C-USA Freshman of the Year honor after posting 16 dual match singles victories and teaming with Koepfer to post a 16-6 dual match doubles mark. Koepfer earned second-team all-conference with 16 singles wins as well. The duo completed the season ranked 66th in the nation by the ITA.

The growth once again continued in the 2015 campaign: 16-7 record, a national ranking as high as 39th, and a perfect 10-0 mark at home. The Green Wave missed out on the NCAA Tournament by the smallest of margins - a tenth of a point in national average. The Green Wave were led by the program's first All-American since 2004, Dominik Koepfer, who finished the year ranked 18th in the country after reaching the second round of the NCAA Singles Championships. Koepfer, the ITA Southern Region Player to Watch and Louisiana Player of the Year, compiled a 16-3 dual record and also finished ranked 89th in doubles alongside Chi-Shan Jao.

The 2016 season saw the Wave return to the national scene, qualifying for their first NCAA Tournament in the post-Katrina era, defeating No. 41 Dartmouth in the first round before falling to host No. 3 North Carolina in the regional final. The Wave also achieved their first top-30 national ranking since 2005, reaching as high as No. 21 before finishing at No. 31. Tulane clashed with 18 ranked teams in 2016, earning a post-Katrina best nine wins against the top-50. Individually, Booras guided Dominik Koepfer to a historic senior year, as the Germany native became the first Tulane national champion since 1955, claiming the ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate Championship. Koepfer was also the first in program history to reach No. 1 in singles in the Oracle/ITA national poll, was a two-time NCAA All-American and was named the 2016 ITA National Men's Senior Player of the Year.