Gustavo Bertei
Background:
Gustavo played on the UNCW men's tennis team from 2006-09. He was selected to the CAA's All-Conference team in the spring of 2008 and served as team captain of UNCW's first CAA Championship team in 2009.
Testimonial:
"Playing college tennis at UNCW helped me realize my passion for coaching and since graduating in 2009, I have been pursuing a career in Coaching Elite Tennis Players. Currently, I am working full- time at Saviano High Performance Tennis Academy with Nick Saviano, Owner and CEO. He is internationally recognized as one of the top developmental coaches and coaching educators in tennis. For over 27 years, Saviano has coached and developed more than 50 ATP & WTA players, including Grand Slam winners, World No. 1's, Junior Wimbledon, US Open, French Open and Italian Open Champions, 22 USTA National Junior Champions, 8 Foreign National Junior Champions and more than 25 ITF Junior Champions, including Sunshine Cup, Orange Bowl and Eddie Herr winners.
Earlier this year, I was able to work for four months at the ITUSA Academy in Scottsdale, Ariz., with Spanish Coach and CEO Rafael Font de Mora. Rafael has worked with several top ATP and WTA players such as David Ferrer, Meghan Shaugnessy, Guillermo Garcia Lopez and Victoria Azarenka. While working there, I was able to learn the Spanish methodology of training.
My experience at UNCW as a student-athlete was pretty amazing. The athletic department was unbelievable from the day I arrived in Wilmington and I will be eternally thankful. They made my experience as a college tennis player in America the best possible. Coach Dubois has played an exceptional role in my development as a player, person and leader. His policies were very successful from the beginning. I have to highlight my senior year when we accomplished something unique by winning the CAA championship for the first time in history. My teammates also played an important role. We developed something extremely valuable in our lives; a family and brotherhood for life. We had each other backs in every tough situation, which led us to succeed as players and people. I would like to mention that Coach Dubois and assistant coach Taylor Vaughn made our experience one of the best of college tennis. Taylor was not only an assistant coach, but like a brother to us, bringing energy, charisma and intensity to practice, matches and trips.
Coach Dubois made sure we interacted within the community of Wilmington, too. Coach made sure we grew not just as players, but as good citizens as well. Everywhere we went he made sure we were gentlemen around the campus and the tennis community in Wilmington. All of the alumni tennis players will be eternally thankful to the coaches as well as the athletic department and UNCW."
Seahawks Forever!
Coach DuBois on Gustavo Bertei:
"When I think of Gustavo, I think of him as one of the most passionate players we have had on our university and tennis team. He truly loved his team and his time here and continues to be a passionate supporter of our program.
Gustavo was already on the team when I started at UNCW and from the beginning, he was very open and only wanted what was best for the team. It is not easy to have someone come in and completely change the way everything is done and Gustavo had enough faith in my vision to jump on-board and believe in what we were trying to do. That has always meant a lot to me.
Our mantra in 2009 was that we wanted to get "Big Poppy" (Gustavo) a championship before he graduated. It was a very proud moment for me when I got to see him with that CAA Championship Trophy in his last year. He has shared with me many times what it meant to him to be a member of our team and I know he will take his passion for tennis and success with him to his coaching career. It does not surprise me at all that he has worked his way to one of the premier elite tennis academies in the world and I know he will be hugely successful."
