Bio

Meenakshi Sundaram was named the Head Dillard Men's and Women's Tennis Coach during the summer 2021. He was chosen to restart the tennis programs following an extensive nationwide search.

Sundaram has over 30 years of coaching experience at the highest levels of the game working with players on the ITF, WTA and ATP circuit.

He served as the head coach for the men’s and women’s tennis programs at Nicholls State from January 2011 – May 2016. During his tenure at Nicholls State he took two teams that were at the bottom of the Southland Conference to the top positions in the conference with his women’s team winning the regular season title in 2015 and his men finishing as the runner-up in 2012. During his time both the men’s and women’s programs were ranked in the top 75 in the NCAA for the first and only time in school history. Stephanie Barnett on the women’s side was ranked No. 69 in the NCAA’s and Nico Mertens on the men’s side was ranked No. 72. Sundaram was voted Coach of the Year in the Southland Conference for the women’s program in 2015 after the team’s dream run of an 11-1 mark

Academically, his teams have performed brilliantly in the classroom with his women’s teams winning the President’s Award for the team with the best GPA on campus all five years while he was at Nicholls State. His simple philosophy for success has been “Be ready to learn, get better, graduate and contribute nothing less than 100 percent and the results will follow.”

Prior to coming to the Colonels he worked as an assistant men’s tennis coach at University of Texas San Antonio (UTSA). As a member of the staff with the Roadrunners he help the program to their second Southland Conference Championship in 10 years and a trip to the 2010 NCAA Tournament.

Prior to his time with the UTSA, Sundaram owned and operated Competitive Edge Residential Tennis Camp for 15 years, building the camp into one of the top developmental tennis academies in India.  Several of his prospects went onto play at Division I tennis programs, including: his daughter and SEC Freshman Team honoree Kelsey Sundaram (University of Arkansas & Texas Christian University), his son Joshua Sundaram (Lamar University), former ACC Freshman of the Year Sandhya Nagaraj (North Carolina State), 2010 ITA Scholar Athlete Varsha Shivshanker (Rice University). His greatest accomplishment was not results he produced but the lifelong relationships he built.

His entire career as a player and a coach has kept him traveling throughout the world with an opportunity to work with and observe some of the best juniors out there. It started with representing his home country of India in the Junior Davis Cup during the early 80’s where India finished sixth in the World Group of 16 countries – a feat that has not yet been accomplished since – since then he has had the opportunity to watch and learn from some of the greatest mentors out there.

One of his best compliments as a coach by one of his former players was “Coach, I love you today for the same thing I disliked you for yesterday.”

He joins Dillard after most recently working as social studies/math teacher with the 7th/8th graders at Napoleonville Middle School. It is a position that he has held since August 2016.

The Chennai, India native was an All-American at McLennan Community College in Waco, Texas and played at Texas State where he graduated a Cum Laude in 1990.

He resides in Thibodaux, Louisiana with his wife Kelly Sundaram.