Texas Rio Grande Valley Athletics

Atakan Gezer was appointed as Assistant Coach for the Washington and Lee University men's tennis program in September 2021.

Gezer comes to W&L from the Optimum Tennis Academy in Istanbul, Turkey where he had been a professional tour coach since October 2021 and spent more than 20 weeks on the tour with various players.
 
While at Optimum, Gezer led some of the Turkey’s best ITF juniors tennis players to the rankings as high as 324 and coached them to qualify for U-18 Turkish National Team. Also, he assisted in the development of several professional performers training at the academy.
 
Prior to his work at the academy, Gezer served as a volunteer coach at the Enka Sports Tennis Club in Istanbul.
 
As a player, his career took off in 2011. As a member of the Turkish National Team, Gezer placed third in U-12 European competition, was crowned the U14 Turkish Champion, and achieved a career high ranking of 267 with an ITF Junior designation. He helped lead his high school team to two Istanbul Regional Championships and finished in the top-5 for three seasons. 

Collegiately, Gezer played at Division II national powerhouse, Rollins College, in Winter Park, Florida. While playing for the Tar, he amassed over 30 wins in singles competition including multiple wins over regionally and nationally ranked opponents.  In the classroom, the International Business major was an ITA Scholar Athlete and on the honor roll.