ShelleyJaudon

University of Kentucky Director of Athletics Mitch Barnhart appointed Shelley Jaudon as the head women’s tennis coach in 2023.

She comes to Kentucky from James Madison University where she guided the program to its first two conference championships and NCAA Championship berths, winning the Colonial Athletic Association championship in both 2019 and 2021. She was named CAA Coach of the Year in each of those seasons.

In her five seasons with the Dukes, the team put together a 62-36 (.633) record, which included a 15-win season in their first year in the Sun Belt Conference, as well as a pair of 14-win campaigns.

In her first year at the helm in 2018-19, Jaudon and the Dukes made history, capturing the CAA crown for the first time and earning a NCAA Championship bid with a 4-2 victory over rival William & Mary in the title match. In the first round of the NCAA Tournament, they faced off with #5 Duke.

JMU finished her first season with a 14-9 overall record and ranked seventh in the Oracle/ITA Division I Atlantic Region. Daria Afanasyeva finished the season with a #13 regional ranking for singles. She led four All-CAA performers, as Afanasyeva was a First Team All-CAA selection in both singles and doubles. Emma Peterson was also First Team All-CAA doubles, while both Abby Amos and Daniela Voloh were Second Team All-CAA singles picks.

In her second season, the Dukes began the year with a 10-4 record before all spring sports nationally were suddenly canceled due to COVID-19.

In year three, Jaudon guided JMU to a 14-4 record and to a repeat of the CAA championship. The Dukes also went 5-0 during conference dual matches, marking the first time in team history it had an unbeaten conference season and earned the No. 1 seed for the CAA Championship. The Dukes advanced to Charlottesville, where they faced Tennessee in the 2021 NCAA first round. They ended the year ranked third in the Atlantic Region and #59 nationally while four athletes were individually ranked in the region.

JMU dominated the conference awards, as all six singles starters and two doubles tandems were named All-CAA. Afanasyeva and Jona Roka were First Team singles honorees, while Alexis Franco, Natalia Nikolopoulou, Kylie Moulin and Daniela Voloh were Third Team picks. Afanasyeva and Franco were also named First Team All-CAA doubles, and Moulin and Roka made Second Team as a duo.

The Dukes embarked on their toughest dual-match schedule in program history in 2021-22, facing off with seven nationally-ranked opponents, winning one, while competing in the ITA Kickoff Weekend for the first time ever.

JMU went 9-11 during that campaign, with a signature win against #62 Michigan State. Two singles athletes and one doubles tandem earned All-CAA recognition. Moulin led the team in wins and was named Second Team All-CAA while Afanasyeva was a Third Team pick. In doubles, Voloh and Michelle Los Arcos were voted Third Team All-CAA. The Dukes were ranked #10 in the Atlantic Region following the season, with Moulin being the 18th-ranked singles player.

The 2022-23 season began a new era for JMU and the women’s tennis program as a member of the Sun Belt Conference. The Dukes went 15-8 with a 9-1 mark in conference matches to earn the No. 2 seed for the SBC Championship, in which the Dukes reached the tournament final. Jaudon coached two singles player and a doubles tandem to All-Sun Belt honors, highlighted by First Team honoree Moulin. Voloh earned singles and doubles accolades, as she was a Second Team single athlete while teaming with freshman Daria Munteanu to First Team doubles status after going undefeated in SBC matches.

Her final season at JMU saw JMU finish ranked fifth in the ITA Atlantic Region and Moulin earning a #13 singles ranking.

Off the court, the Dukes were a 2019 recipient of the NCAA’s Public Recognition Awards after scoring in the top 10% of their sport across the country in the latest Academic Progress Rate (APR). It was the program’s third straight year garnering the award.

Moulin, who excelled both on and off the court, was the program’s first recipient of both the CAA Leadership & Sport Excellence Award in 2021 and the CAA Institutional Scholar-Athlete of the Year accolade in 2022. Also in 2022, Moulin was selected to the CoSIDA Academic All-District Women’s At-Large Team, marking Jaudon’s first honoree in the Academic All-America program. She was also named the Atlantic region’s honoree for the 2022 ITA Cissie Leary Award for Sportsmanship and voted the Casey Carter JMU Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year.

The Dukes have also been named an ITA All-Academic Team in each of her first five seasons, and 25 individuals have been named ITA Scholar-Athletes, including a record eight in 2022 and seven in 2021.

Prior to JMU, Jaudon served as the assistant women’s tennis coach at her alma mater, Alabama for three seasons (2015-18). During her time is Tuscaloosa, Alabama finished nationally ranked, while the 2017 campaign saw the Crimson Tide nationally ranked throughout the season. Jaudon sent student-athletes to the NCAA singles championships along with a doubles pairing to the NCAA Championship match.

Jaudon coached three All-Americans and the 2016 SEC Freshman of the Year, Andie Daniell, who was the first freshman to make the NCAA singles championship field of 64 since 2010 for Alabama.

Before Alabama, Jaudon was the head coach at Middle Tennessee State, where she led the program to four consecutive winning seasons and an overall winning percentage of .630. Prior to her arrival, the program had six losing seasons in seven years.

Jaudon coached two nationally-ranked singles players, including the Conference USA Newcomer of the Year in 2014-15. The Blue Raiders were as high as No. 65 in the national rankings in 2014-15 and finished the season ranked No. 75, the first time the Blue Raiders finished a season in the national rankings in over 10 years.

Prior to her time with the Blue Raiders, she completed two seasons as the assistant head coach at Michigan State. She helped the Spartans reach as high as No. 52 in the ITA rankings in 2010-11.

Jaudon earned her Bachelor of Science in education from Alabama in 2009. While at Alabama, she played for the tennis team and earned both the SEC Sportsmanship Award and the ITA/Arthur Ashe Leadership Regional Award. Jaudon also received her master’s degree in sports administration from Ohio University in 2014.