Blair Shankle Named Women's Tennis Associate Head Coach
6/25/2024 2:30:00 PM | Women's Tennis
HOUSTON, Texas — Rice head women's tennis coach Elizabeth Schmidt has announced the addition of Blair Shankle as associate head coach.
"I am thrilled that Blair will be joining our program," Schmidt said. "She not only has a proven track record of recruiting and developing student-athletes but she also was a phenomenal player who knows the game extremely well. I am confident Blair will have an immediate positive impact on our team, and I am looking forward to working alongside Blair to take our program to even greater heights."
Shankle joins the Owls after spending the past two seasons at SMU, first as an assistant coach and as an associate head coach this past season. Shankle helped the Mustangs to back-to-back AAC championships and appearances in the NCAA Championships, with the team defeating Alabama this past season for the program's first NCAA tournament victory since 2011. Shankle was named the ITA Texas Region Assistant Coach of the Year this season after helping graduate senior Taylor Johnson earn AAC Player of the Year honors.
Prior to SMU, Shankle spent two years at Utah, where she helped lead the Utes in 2021-22 to a program-best 9-0 start, their first Pac 12 Conference Tournament win since 2017 and Utah's first win against USC in program history. Shankle was an integral part in building Utah's ninth-ranked recruiting class in 2022, the program's first-ever top-10 recruiting class, and was named the ITA Mountain Region Assistant Coach of the Year that same season.
Shankle began her coaching career as an assistant coach at Ole Miss for two years beginning in 2019, helping guide several players to numerous regional awards including the ITA Southern Region's Most Improved Senior and Player to Watch. Shankle also helped players reach both the singles finals and the doubles semifinals of the ITA Southern Regionals during her time in Oxford.
As a player at Baylor, Shankle was a three-time All-American for the Bears and finished her career ranked third all-time in doubles wins (99), tied for fourth in singles winning percentage (.826), sixth in singles wins (109) and seventh in doubles winning percentage (.733). She was named the ITA Most Improved Senior both regionally and nationally. Off the court, Shankle was a four-time ITA Scholar-Athlete, three-time Academic All-Big 12 First Team selection and eight-time Big 12 Commissioner's Honor Roll selection. In 2017, Shankle was a CoSIDA/CSC Academic All-District First Team honoree. She was the first person in program history to be named both an All-American on the court and in the classroom.
