UNC Asheville Tennis Coach Lise Gregory has announced that former WTA player and Vanderbilt assistant Meike Babel has joined the Bulldog coaching staff for the 2008 season as an assistant coach.
“We are quite pleased that Meike has agreed to help us this year,” stated Gregory. “She enjoyed a tremendous playing career and has coached at two good programs in Tulane and Vanderbilt. We believe that Meike will be a tremendous asset to our programs this season.”
Babel has been at Vanderbilt as an assistant to the women’s program for the past four years. Previously, she worked at Tulane for two seasons. While with the Green Wave program, she coached two ITA All-Americans, helped lead the team to a 2003 Conference-USA championship and was named the 2003 ITA Southeast Region Assistant Coach of the Year.
Babel was a 10-year veteran of the WTA Tour, the pinnacle of professional women's tennis. During her career, she ascended all the way to No. 27 in the world in singles and No. 45 in doubles.
The Langen, Germany, native competed in all four Grand Slam events - the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon and the United States Open - a total of 19 times, advancing to the third round of the Australian and French tournaments three times.
In singles, Babel won a pair of titles on the International Tennis Federation (ITF) tour in 1991 in Paderborn, Germany, and Madeira, Portugal. She was a finalist in three tournaments - the 1992 Belgian Open, 1993 Prague and 1994 Linz.
Babel's doubles career included a 1998 WTA title in Istanbul with partner Laurence Courtois. The pairing also reached the finals at Luxembourg in 1997, the same year that saw Babel earn runner-up status at Warsaw, Poland. Babel also had the honor of representing her home country in the Federations Cup in 1997 and 1998.
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