Andres Pedroso

University of Virginia

Team:men

On May 24, 2017, Andres Pedroso was named the Cavaliers’ director of tennis and head men’s tennis coach, overseeing both the men’s and women’s tennis programs while also serving as the head coach of Virginia men’s tennis.

As the director of tennis, Pedroso is charged with oversight of both programs while serving as the head coach of the men’s tennis program. This model enables the UVA men’s and women’s programs to collaborate and make the best use of all available resources while sharing a joint vision for success that meets the goals set by the Virginia athletics department.

In just his second season as head coach, Pedroso was named the 2019 ACC Men’s Tennis Coach of the Year, with Cavaliers sweeping the conference’s annual honors as junior Carl Söderlund was named the ACC Player of the Year and Brandon Nakashima the ACC Freshman of the Year. He helped lead the Cavaliers back to the NCAA finals site as the team made a run to the NCAA Quarterfinals, finishing the year as the No. 5 team in the Oracle/ITA Rankings. Nakashima, one of Pedroso’s first recruits, was the No. 5 junior player in the world at the time of his signing and was coming off an upset win over No. 1 junior Chun Hsin Tseng to win the 2018 ITF Junior Masters Boys’ Singles Championship in Chengdu, China.

Pedroso navigated his team through the difficulties of the 2020 season that was cut short by the COVID-19 crisis. In that shortened season, his squad still managed to garner numerous accolades with Söderlund rising to a No. 1 ITA preseason singles ranking while also earning the ACC’s prestigious Weaver-James-Corrigan Postgraduate Scholarship Award. Sophomore Ryan Goetz improved on his runner-up finish at the 2018 ITA Atlantic Regional by winning the singles title on the home court in 2019, becoming the 10th player in program history to win the tournament.

In his first season at the helm of the Cavaliers, Pedroso led the team to its 15th-consecutive NCAA Championship appearance and had two players selected to compete in the NCAA Singles tournament. Before the season even began, Pedroso made an impact in building the future of the program, signing three top-ranked recruits including Gianni Ross, who joined the program in January of 2018. Ross, ranked the No. 2 recruit in the 2017 class, went on to be named the 2018 ITA Atlantic Region Rookie of the Year. Under Pedroso’s guidance, junior Aswin Lizen won the ITA Atlantic Regional singles title in the fall and went from unranked to a top-10 ranking in the Oracle/ITA singles rankings.

Pedroso originally served as Virginia’s associate head coach from 2010-14. During that four-year span, the Cavaliers won four ACC championships, the program’s first NCAA championship (2013) and two ITA National Team Indoor titles (2011 and 2013). Pedroso coached six All-Americans during this time, including 2013 ITA National Player of the Year Jarmere Jenkins, the 2013 NCAA Doubles Champion team of Jenkins and Mac Styslinger and ITA All-American champions Alex Domijan and Mitchell Frank. Pedroso was named the 2014 ITA National Assistant Coach of the Year and he was twice honored as the ITA Atlantic Region Assistant Coach of the Year (2012 and 2014). After leaving Charlottesville in 2014, Pedroso coached privately in South Florida.

As a student-athlete at Duke, Pedroso helped lead the Blue Devils to four ACC titles, he was a two-time All-American and he was named to the ACC 50th Anniversary Team. Over eight seasons, as a player at Duke and an associate head coach at Virginia, Pedroso did not lose a team match against a conference opponent.

Following his college career at Duke, Pedroso played professionally for four years, reaching career-high rankings of No. 271 in singles and No. 255 in doubles. During his pro career, he won four singles titles and two doubles titles on the Futures Tour and a doubles title on the Challenger Tour.

Pedroso first came to Virginia after serving as a national coach for USTA Player Development. During his time with the USTA, he was responsible for the development of the top male American junior players born in 1995. He also worked periodically with several top American professional players, including Sam Querrey, Mardy Fish, Jesse Levine and Ryan Harrison.

Pedroso and his wife, Erika, have three sons, Felix, Christian and Matias.