'Usher, Assistant Men's Coach, Named to Run Women's Tennis

Donald K. Usher, an adviser to many of the world's top-ranking professional women tennis players and an assistant coach for the Harvard men's tennis team, will become head coach of the women's squad in September, John P. Reardon Jr., '60, director of athletics, announced this week.

Usher, a former head coach for the Purdue University women's team, will replace Peter Felske, who led the Crimson to many Massachusetts and New England titles during his four years here.

Overseas

The new coach has spent the last week at Wimbledon counseling one of his students. Anne Smith, of Texas, who has broken the world's top-20 rankings several times. He will return to meet with Tiina Bougas. Harvard's first-singles player, early next month to discuss plans for the coming season.

Bougas, men's head coach David Fish, and others have credited Usher with helping the men's squad achieve a perfect 9-0 record in the Eastern Intercollegiate Tennis Association last year. The team also made it to the final 16 of the NCAA championships last year and produced Harvard's first All-American--sophomore first-singles ace Howard Sands.

Usher, who has coached Bougas on and off for six years, uses unique methods of analyzing a players' strengths and weaknesses based on the "biomechanics" of each stroke, the Harvard women's star explained yesterday.

After analyzing the strokes of Bjorn Borg--ranked number one in the world and favored to win Wimbledon--Usher has devised several revolutionary techniques to improve control and power, Bougas said.

She said that the new coach's success can be seen in the rapid improvement of many members of the men's team, especially Adam Beren, who jumped from number-five spot to number two after he began using Usher's tactics this winter.

The women's team finished the spring season with a 4-2 record--good for third-place in the Ivy League--but will probably improve a lot" under Usher, Bougas said.