Adam Albertsen begins his seventh season as the head coach for SIUE tennis after being named the program's 10th coach in June 2018.
Albertsen and the Cougars are coming off a highly-successful season in which the team won the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament and advanced to the NCAA Tournament against nationally-ranked Pepperdine.
The 2023 OVC Coach of the Year, Albertsen led a program that has increased its win total in each of his first six seasons. The Cougars finished 18-4 in 2024 and advanced to the OVC Championship match for the second straight season.
In 2024, SIUE set a program best for the number of student-athletes earning All-OVC honors. SIUE captured five spots on the All-OVC team with Margaux Guibal Britt, Jill Lambrechts and Jordan Schifano being named first team. Amelia Gorman and Fabiola Perez earned second team honors. All-Conference honors also extended to the doubles teams of Guibal Britt and Gorman as well as Lambrechts and Schifano.
Once again, SIUE student-athletes have demonstrated classroom success with Albertsen as the head coach. The women's tennis Cougars posted a cumulative 3.78 grade point average in the classroom with Lambrechts earning College Sports Communicators Academic All-American status for the second time in her career.
In 2023, four SIUE women's tennis players were selected as All-OVC while Gorman was named the OVC Freshman of the Year for the 17-win Cougars.
The 2022 season saw the Cougars reach 16 wins - good for the third-most in any season since the program moved to NCAA Division I in 2008-09. The Cougars also garnered national recognition as a 9-0 start catapulted SIUE into the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Division I National Team Rankings for the first time in program history. Four student-athletes earned All-OVC honors, including OVC Player of the Year for Lambrechts.
The 2021 season saw tremendous success, as the Cougars achieved their highest full-season winning percentage since the program's 2017 Ohio Valley Conference championship run. The Cougars' 10 match wins continued the program's trend of annual improvement, as the program's overall win total has increased every season since Albertsen took over as head coach. Albertsen also coached true freshman Jordan Schifano to a 13-3 singles record and a spot on the All-OVC Second Team.
During the 2019-20 season, which was shortened due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Albertsen coached the Cougars to a 9-2 start. Two newcomers that Albertsen recruited made an immediate impact for the Cougars. Jill Lambrechts anchored the top of the lineup with a 13-4 Freshman debut while Vanessa Reinicke shined going 16-0 in singles. In addition to the program's rapid growth on the courts, Albertsen was named to the ITA Division I Operating Committee as a representative of the Central region.
In his debut season, Albertsen proved he had the Cougars headed in the right direction. The Ohio Valley Conference women's tennis team Sportsmanship honoree, the Cougars improved their win total by six victories, and Alina Munteanu earned first team All-OVC honors to become the fifth player in program history to earn all-OVC honors.
Throughout his tenure at the helm, the Cougars have excelled in the classroom, earning ITA All-Academic Team status in each of his first six seasons along with 34Â ITA Scholar Athlete award winners. With Albertsen on the staff, the Cougars also have held a perfect APR score and perfect graduation rate.
Previously, Albertsen had been the head men’s and women’s tennis coach at the University of Montevallo (Ala.). There, he achieved program-best records for the women (21-3) and the men (16-6). All of his teams at Montevallo earned the ITA All-Academic Team award for a team accumulative grade point average of 3.20 or above. Albertsen also has been a collegiate head coach since 2010, leading St. Norbert College (Wis.) and Adrian College (Mich.) in that time.
At St. Norbert (D-III), he led his men’s team to the 2010 Midwest Conference North Division title. In 2011, he jumpstarted the men and women’s tennis program at Adrian (D-III).
Albertsen is a native of Burlington, Iowa. He was a four-year tennis letter winner at Quincy University where he was the team captain for his junior and senior seasons. Albertsen earned Academic All-Great Lakes Valley Conference honors from 2005-2008.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in sports management from Quincy University in 2008 and a master’s in sport management from Western Illinois in 2010. Adam and his wife, Allison, have two sons, Henry and Joey.
