The RoundHouse | 12/17/2019 4:36:00 PM

 
Sarvinoz Saidhujaeva did not notice the slight spin of the tennis ball when she lofted it to start her serve. 
 
"I had been playing tennis for like 13 years and I never felt like my ball was spinning during my serve when I toss," she said. "Now I feel it and I'm working it and it helps me."
 
Jay Louderback noticed, which is the advantage of having someone who coached Notre Dame to 24 NCAA tennis berths on staff as the volunteer assistant at Wichita State. 
 
Louderback, who retired in 2018 after 29 seasons at Notre Dame, spent most of the fall helping Shocker women's coach Colin Foster. He comes to two or three practices a week and traveled to one fall tournament. Louderback played tennis at Wichita State from 1972-76 and coached the women's program from 1979-86. 
 
"He doesn't need any direction," Foster said. "He's done it all and it's been great to get to know him more."
 
Louderback, from Arkansas City, returned to Kansas to be close to family. He and Denise, his wife, took a year to travel to places such as Greece. By this summer, he was ready to be part of a tennis program again.
 
"I was missing the day-to-day contact with the student-athletes," he said. "Especially being on the court with them. I enjoy the coaching."
 
Louderback often came to Wichita after returning to Kansas and when he did would stop by the Coleman Tennis Complex to watch practice and chat with Foster and men's coach Danny Bryan.
 
"About the third or fourth time I came by, Colin asked me if I wanted to volunteer," he said. "From the first day, I felt really welcome. It's a nice group and they work hard."
 
Louderback's relationship with Saidhujaeva is the top example of how all that experience and a positive personality can help. Saidhujaeva, a senior from Uzbekistan, spent most of last spring in the No. 4 and No. 5 spots. This fall, she advanced to the quarterfinals of the ITA Central Regional Championships and she is on track to play No. 1 singles and doubles in the spring.
 
"She has had such a great fall," Foster said. "He brings instant credibility with his past experience. Notre Dame always had incredible doubles, so he's helped with a couple doubles drills. A lot of it is just saying something slightly differently than what I'm saying. O it could be a lot different. A fresh voice."
 
Saidhujaeva worked with Louderback in practice and he traveled to the Central Regional and coached her when Foster worked with others. 
 
"He was saying the right things," she said. "He was trying to pull me up. I never felt like I was going to lose a match – it was always positive emotions."
 
And some help on the serve. When the ball spins, it is harder to locate the serve accurately.
 
"It's little things, but it helps you a lot to serve better," she said. "When it doesn't spin, you know you can do three, four different types of serves."
 
Louderback liked her service motion. Taking the spin off the ball during the toss added to its potency.
 
"She would toss it and it would roll off her fingers and the ball was just all over the place," he said. "I've always felt when you toss, if you can toss it like a knuckleball, where there's as little spin as possible, you can place it a lot more consistently."
 
When Louderback returned to Wichita, he often walked through the Wichita State campus. Pictures from his successful tenure – as coach, three conference titles for the Shockers – are featured in the Coleman Tennis Complex offices. He won the 1976 Missouri Valley Conference singles title during his playing career.
 
When he played at Wichita State, the tennis courts sat in the same location, but were much more primitive. He would often finish practice and head to Henrion Gym for pickup basketball. 
 
"I would drop my racquets off at the side of the basketball court and play until I had to get back to Fairmount Towers for dinner," he said. "I think that was my main conditioning. I loved going to school here."
 
Paul Suellentrop covers Wichita State Athletics and the American Athletic Conference for university Strategic Communications. Contact him at paul.suellentrop@wichita.edu.