Pretoria, South Africa native Jaco Keyser has made the University of South Alabama and Mobile his home away from home.
Keyser is a veteran of Jaguar men’s and women’s tennis, having served as a player and assistant coach, while the 2010-11 season will mark Keyser’s ninth season at the helm of the USA women’s tennis program.
In his eight seasons in charge he has led the Jaguars to three NCAA Tournament appearances and one Sun Belt Conference title and currently carries a 119-66 overall record. He is the longest-tenured coach in school history and is second overall in wins, ranking eight behind all-time leader Scott Novak entering the 2011 campaign.
Keyser has had a player or doubles pairing named to the All-Sun Belt team 15 times and in 2003 Viktoria Stoklasova was tabbed to the ITA All-America team.
His teams have finished the season ranked in the Intercollegiate Tennis Associations’s top 65 seven straight times, including a final position of No. 16 in 2003.
Keyser took over a team in 2002-03 that had won 10 straight league championships and promptly guided the team to its 11th SBC title with a 21-5 record. The Jags made their eighth consecutive NCAA appearance and won their first-round match with No. 73 Marshall 4-2 before bowing out to No. 10 William & Mary.
The following year the team slumped to a 12-12 overall record but still advanced to the Sun Belt finals and earned a bid to the NCAA Tournament where the Jaguars fell to Miami (Fla.).
The 2005 campaign saw USA rebound to post a 19-7 mark with two winning streaks of six matches or longer and another trip to the NCAA Tournament. The Jags knocked off in-state rival Alabama, ranked 39th in the nation, but succumbed to host and fourth-ranked Vanderbilt.
Keyser paced South Alabama to double-digit win totals in each of the next four seasons, including records of 19-5 in 2008 and 14-4 in 2009. His 2008 squad started the season with 11 straight wins en route to a third-place finish at the Sun Belt Championships and the 2009 Jaguars also put together an 11-match streak that was snapped in the Sun Belt Championships by eventual champion Florida International.
Faced with a rebuilding and shorthanded roster, the Jaguars dropped to a 2-13 record in 2010, his first losing season as a head coach.
On three occasions Keyser has mentored a singles player to an end-of-season national ranking. Stoklasova was ranked 33rd in her All-America season in 2003 while Adrianna Solarova finished No. 56 and No. 55 in 2006 and 2007, respectively. Stoklasova advanced to the round of 16 in the NCAA Individual Championships.
Keyser was named head women's tennis coach on July 31, 2002 after spending three seasons with the men's tennis program as an assistant coach.
A three-year letterwinner on the South Alabama tennis team from 1994-97, Keyser was a member of three Sun Belt Championship teams and helped them advance to the NCAA Tournament each year. In 1995, the team reached the national quarterfinals at the NCAA Team Championships, the highest finish in school history.
His final records at South Alabama included a singles mark of 46-14 and a doubles record of 56-10. He was named All-Sun Belt Conference in doubles in 1995 with teammate Myles Wakefield and in 1996 with teammate Johannes Saayman.
Keyser was ranked in the top-five in singles and doubles in the South African juniors for age 12-18 and was a member of the South African High School tennis team in 1992 and 1993.
