Men's Tennis

Arguably the greatest Golden Eagle to ever hit the courts, Edu Mena successfully made the transition into the coaching ranks for Tennessee Tech tennis. Mena is in his fourth season coaching the purple and gold, with the 2022 campaign serving as his first year as the team's associate head coach after holding the roles of volunteer assistant coach in 2018-19, graduate assistant coach in 2019-20, and full-time assistant coach in 2020-21.

Since Mena put on the coaching hat following a storied playing career that concluded in the spring of 2018, the Golden Eagles haven't skipped a beat when it comes to the club's conference dominance. In Mena's first season helping guide the purple and gold as a volunteer assistant in 2019, Tech seized both the OVC's regular season and tournament crown for the program's fourth straight tourney title and seventh regular-season championship in the last nine years.

As a graduate assistant coach in 2020, Mena was part of a Kenny Doyle led TTU staff that appeared to have the Golden Eagles well on their way to another shot at conference glory before the remainder of the season was cancelled due to COVID-19. After an 0-3 start at the hands of three nationally ranked teams, Tech kicked it into high gear with wins in five of the last six matches, highlighted by a four-match winning streak at the time the campaign was called.

A storied playing career for the purple and gold from 2014-18, Mena is the program’s all-time winningest player with 153 combined singles and doubles victories, 10 more than the next closest TTU player in program history. The Bultrago del Lozoya, Spain native is the only Golden Eagle to eclipse the century mark in career singles wins, accumulating an overall record of 105-37 (.739), 19 more wins than the next closest player in school history.  

Seemingly never an off night, let alone an off season, Mena is the only Golden Eagle to ever see his name appear three different times on the top-ten single-season singles wins list. His 33 victories in the 2015-16 campaign are the most ever in one year of Tennessee Tech tennis. He went undefeated in conference play in two of his four seasons as a Golden Eagle, dropping one match as a freshman and one as a senior for an overall OVC mark of 26-2, a winning percentage of .929.

The gaudy numbers are one thing, but what helped set Mena apart from his Golden Eagle predecessors and allowed his name to be discussed within a historical context the likes of which have never been witnessed, was his ability to perform when the lights were brightest and the stage was grandest. Not only did Mena take aim in a slew of the nation's most premier tournaments year in and year out, but the four-year Golden Eagle soared against an abundance of nationally-ranked foes, essentially beginning with a battle against the number one.

Rewind to the spring of 2016. Playing as TTU's No. 1 singles player for most of the year, Mena, who took home the OVC Player of the Year award after claiming the league's Freshman of the Year honors as a rookie in 2015, had just helped lead the Golden Eagles to the first of three straight OVC Tournament championships and the first of three straight NCAA Tournament appearances. After learning of Tech's fate in the big dance with a trip to Columbus and a first-round battle with Ohio State, Mena was about to tangle with his tallest task to date as just a sophomore.

Up stepped the number one player in the entire nation, Mikael Torpegaard, and his unblemished 23-0 record that spring that netted him Big Ten Player of the Year of honors. Having already registered a 10-2 mark against "Power 5" competition during the season, Mena was more than up to the challenge. Despite the bout not finishing, Mena seized the first set with a 7-6 (7-5) triumph and led 3-2 in the second set at the time when the match was officially called.

Enter junior year. Equipped with the challenge of defending his OVC Player of the Year hardware, Mena proved that it would indeed be a year of déjà vu. Thanks to a second-consecutive undefeated conference campaign and an overall calendar year that featured only five losses, Mena was recognized as the conference's Player of the Year for the second straight season, a feat that has only occurred four times within the league since 1991.

The Golden Eagles would once again take home the OVC regular season and tournament championship, but for Mena, the cherry on top of another star-studded season would reveal itself in the form of a piece of program history. After becoming only the second Golden Eagle ever to secure a bid in the NCAA DI singles championships, joining Borja Zarco's 2008 appearance, Mena took it a step further with a place in Tech lore that now has only reservations for one.

Behind 6-4, 7-6 (6) victory over Baylor's Maxime Tchoutakian in the tournament's opening round, Mena became the first Golden Eagle ever to win a match in the NCAA DI singles championships.

A year later, he did it again, only upping the ante to his spot in school history. Mena became the first TTU tennis player ever to qualify for two NCAA DI singles championships, and after a 6-4, 6-3 win over Louisville's Christopher Morin-Kougoucheff, Mena's resume now includes a pair of victories in the nation's most elite tournament.

The victory would serve as his final decked in purple and gold, capping off a swan-song season in which Mena was nationally ranked all year long. In fact, with a No. 28 ranking by the Oracle Intercollegiate Tennis Association in mid-November, Mena secured the highest ranking in school history, surpassing his own preseason ranking of No. 33 from early September.

Mena's final nod would also act as his last of 26 victories against "Power 5" competition, as well as his concluding 10^th win against nationally-ranked opponents throughout his TTU tenure. Among the highlights against some of the nation's best, a victory over the No. 2 ranked player in the country in Mississippi State's Nuno Borges as part of a dramatic run all the way to the quarterfinals of the ITA Men's All-American Championships during Mena's senior season.