Olga Bazhanova

Third-year head coach Olga Bazhanova helped rebuild the championship tradition of Northwestern State tennis as a player and an assistant coach, and she continues to build on a foundation based on strong character and values since taking over the program in 2015.

This past season, the Lady Demons returned to the Southland Conference championship match, making it four straight seasons of reaching the tournament finals since Bazhanova joined the staff. NSU won tournament titles in 2013 and 2015, securing a birth to the NCAA tournament both years.

Bazhanova tutored Natyla Krutova, who graduated with a 4.0 GPA in Biomedical Science was named to the CoSIDA Academic All-American team in 2016, and earned All-Southland Conference and All-Louisiana selections all four years she competed. Krutova finished tied for fourth all-time in career singles wins in NSU history.

The Lady Demons have posted a 3.4 GPA over the past eight academic years.

"We have built a program that has strong academic values that our students carry beyond that classroom," said Bazhanova.
 
In 2015, The Lady Demons won the Southland Conference Tournament as a No. 4 seed, the program’s third league tournament title and NCAA Tournament appearance in six seasons.

NSU (16-9, 9-2 SLC) tied for the fourth-most wins in program history led by All-Louisiana selections Tatiana Larina and Natalya Krutova. The season was highlighted by winning streaks of six and seven matches.

The six-match streak carried NSU to a conference tournament title highlighted by a 4-2 win against Nicholls, a team that had beaten the Lady Demons 4-0 in the regular season.

Bazhanova has been an integral part of five total conference titles as a player or coach in the past seven years.

As an assistant coach under then-head coach Patric DuBois, she helped the 2013 Lady Demons win the SLC Tournament title and another NCAA Tournament before the 2014 NSU team won the SLC regular season title and advanced to the conference tournament finals.         

She was NSU’s No. 1 singles player and part of a nationally ranked doubles pairing with Adna Curukovic, leading the 2010 squad to SLC regular season and tournament titles while posting the fewest losses in the country with a 21-2 record. She was also member of a team that climbed to No. 64 in the ITA Collegiate rankings.

Bazhanova won All-Southland honors as a sophomore in 2010 and a senior in 2012.

She was also a two-time All-Southland Academic Team selection while posting a career doubles mark of 64-20, giving her the fourth-most dual match victories in school history. Her 48 singles wins (48-31) is tied for 13th on the NSU career list. She was first-team All-Southland Conference in doubles in 2010 and 2012.
 

“Olga has been a leader for the Lady Demon tennis program since she first set foot on campus (seven) years ago.  As either a coach or player, she has been a part of three championship teams and understands the expectation of success that is so prevalent within the program,” said NSU athletics director Greg Burke.

Bazhanova, a 26-year-old native of Nikolaev, Ukraine, has her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from NSU.