University of North Carolina men’s tennis head coach Sam Paul is one of four new members to the North Carolina Tennis Foundation’s Hall of Fame, the foundation announced on Tuesday.
Paul enters the 2022-23 season, his 34th at the University of North Carolina and 30th as its head coach, as the winningest active coach in the Atlantic Coast Conference. He has an overall record of 541-223, including more ACC wins (202) than any coach in history. Highlights of Paul’s career include two ITA indoor national championships (2016, 2021), two NCAA Final Fours (2017, 2019) and the 2017 NCAA final. His teams have earned NCAA Tournament bids in 26 of the last 28 years and have made eight consecutive appearances in the NCAA Round of 16.
Paul has earned many coaching accolades, including the 2017 ITA National Coach of the Year award, six ACC Coach of the Year awards and four ITA regional coach of the year awards. During his tenure as an assistant and head coach at Carolina, the Tar Heels have won seven ACC championships, including three tournament titles and four regular season championships.
Paul has guided a host of Tar Heel players to conference, regional and national accolades. UNC players have earned All-ACC accolades 74 times since 1994. Since he became an assistant coach at UNC in 1989, the Tar Heels have had players earn first-team All-America honors 41 times. In both 2016 and 2020, UNC led the nation with five All-America selections. In 2020, Blumberg won the ITA Senior Player of the Year award and was named All-America a record 10 times.
Paul has also seen his players achieve top honors in the classroom, highlighted by 2022 ACC Tennis Scholar Athlete of the Year Brian Cernoch. Paul’s players have gone on to achieve professional success in a wide variety of careers.
During his tenure, a number of Tar Heel players have earned international success on the ATP Tour, most notably Don Johnson (Wimbledon doubles champion, 2001), Tripp Phillips (US Open doubles semifinalist, 2006), Nicholas Monroe (US Open doubles quarterfinalist, 2018, and French Open doubles quarterfinalist, 2020) and William Blumberg (US Open mixed doubles semifinalist, 2022).
The North Carolina Tennis Hall of Fame now includes 111 members with the addition of Rebel Good, Jeff Joyce, Sam Paul and Cliff Skakle. The inaugural class was inducted in 1975. The North…
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