Entering her first season as a coach, Yudeshnee Pillay comes to Queens after a stellar collegiate and international playing career.
Her collegiate career was filled with individual and team achievements. With a career singles record of 95-18 (87-21 doubles), she has earned All-America honors on three occasions.
Beginning her career at Auburn University of Montgomery in 2006, she led the Tigers to back-to-back National Championship titles while earning All-America honors in each season.
She continued to sharpen her skill set after a transfer to the University of North Carolina at Charlotte – where she would go on to finish the 2009 campaign undefeated in the No. 1 flight en route to being named to the Atlantic 10 All-Conference and All-America first teams.
As a teenager, she defeated South Africa’s greatest talents to win the country’s National titles in the U/12, U/14, U/16, and U/18 tournaments. She continued competing against the world’s best players at ITF tournaments and earned a spot in the Top 200 ITF Junior Rankings.
She would go on to represent South Africa at tournaments around the globe: the Junior World Cup U/16 in France; the African Junior Cup U/14, U/16, and U/18 in Tunisia; and the Nike Junior International Masters U/12 in Spain where she played amongst world-class players Rafael Nadal, Dinara Safina, and Thomas Berdych.
