CLEMSON, S.C. – Head Coach Robbie Weiss announced that Austin Rapp joined the staff as an assistant coach on Friday. Rapp joins the Tigers after working at the University of Texas for the past two seasons, serving as a volunteer assistant coach.
“I feel truly blessed that Robbie has given me the opportunity to join the Clemson staff,” says Rapp. “His vision to take the program back to the highest level of college tennis is one that I am fully on board with. I mostly look forward to the hours of my day I’ll spend with our players, striving for excellence on and off the court. Go Tigers!”
“I am absolutely thrilled to have Austin Rapp join our program,” Weiss says. “Austin stood out among a pool of very strong candidates. He is incredibly passionate about college coaching and mentoring the student-athlete on and off the court. He comes to Clemson from the University of Texas where he was the volunteer coach for two seasons and did fantastic work with that program. Austin is hungry to help our program get to the next level and will bring with him a wealth of knowledge.
“Austin was an All-American at UCLA and played on the ATP Tour for a number of years where he had success in both singles and doubles. He has a great personality and will fit in perfectly with our players and will do bang up job recruiting. I can’t wait to get started with him.”
“We are very happy for Austin,” says Bruce Berque, head coach for the men’s tennis program at Texas. “He’s moving on to work with a great coach in Robbie Weiss, and I have no doubt that he will make a massive impact on the Clemson program, just as he did for us at Texas. Austin embodies the qualities that coaches try to build in their players: character, attitude, hard work and drive for success. We thank him for two great years and wish him great success at Clemson!”
This past season, despite the team facing an unprecedented string of injuries, the Longhorns still reached the NCAA Tournament Round of 16 and posted at least 18 wins each for an eighth-consecutive season. All of Texas’ 11 losses came to opponents ranked at least in the top 15 with nine of those against teams in the top six, including 4-3 defeat against No. 1 Florida and No. 2 Ohio State. The season also featured wins versus that same Gators team at ITA Indoor Nationals, which Texas reached for the fourth-straight year, and at No. 9 USC. In addition, he helped Richard Ciamarra and Cleeve Harper win Texas’ seventh men’s doubles title in program history.
In 2021, Rapp helped the Longhorns to a 24-6 overall record, a share of the regular season Big 12 Championship, an appearance in the NCAA Final Four and an ITA Final Ranking of No. 3 after being rated as high as No. 2 earlier in the season. Texas also posted wins over three of the four teams that at one point had been ranked No. 1 during the season, including eventual National Champion Florida, eventual runner-up Baylor and two wins over USC, which was No. 1 in the first meeting at the ITA National Team Indoor Championships.
Rapp was a four-year letterman with the Bruins from 2015-18, earning his All-America status as a senior in 2018. That year, he partnered with Keegan Smith to finish No. 6 in the ITA doubles rankings and advance to the semifinals of the NCAA Doubles Championship. Additionally, he was named the ITA Southwest Region Arthur Ashe Leadership & Sportsmanship Award winner, an ITA Scholar-Athlete, and to the Pac-12 All-Academic First Team. Overall during his career, he was a two-time ITA Scholar-Athlete and three-time Pac-12 All-Academic honoree.
Following his college career, Rapp reached career-high ATP rankings of 328 in doubles and 672 in singles, along with ITF rankings of 38 in doubles and 302 in singles
Born in Davenport, Iowa and native of Rancho Mirage, Calif., Rapp earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and government from UCLA. His brother, Connor, also played on the Bruins men’s tennis team.
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