Coaches and Staff
Dimitar Yazadzhiev, MPE
Owner & Tennis Director
USPTR Professional
USRSA Master Racquet Technician
USTA Competition Training Center (CTC) Head Coach for Ventura/Santa Barbara
Dimitar has been coaching at the highest professional level for almost 20 years. He has been a Head Coach for the Weil Tennis Academy (Ojai, CA) for over 10 years. Before this, he was a coach at the Maleeva Tennis Academy, a Tournament Director for the Bulgarian Tennis Federation, and a Management Director for the Academic Tennis Club (Sofia, Bulgaria). He has been ranked among the Top Four Juniors in Bulgaria and has been a professional USPTR since 1993.
He graduated from the prestigious Bulgarian National Sports Academy with a master's degree in Physical Education and Sports Management.
Dimitar has been coaching and working with some of the top ranked national and international junior players, among them: Sesil Karatancheva (Top 40 WTA and French Open Quarter Finalist), Ksenia Milevskaya (Top 200 WTA, 2007 #2 ITF), Nolan Bauer (#1 Southwest Section B14s, Top 40 US B14s), and Grigor Dimitrov (#1 ITF B18s, 2006 Orange Bowl Boys 16s Singles champion, 2008 Jr. Wimbledon champion, and 2008 Jr. US Open Singles champion).
You can reach Dimitar at dimitar@sbschooloftennis.com
Pete Kirkwood
Head Coach and Adult Clinics Coordinator
USPTA Professional
Pete has 18 years of experience as the Head Coach Women’s Tennis at UCSB and co-directed the Nike Tennis Camps for ten years. He was responsible for recruiting successful student athletes to compete at the Division I level for the UC Santa Barbara Women’s tennis team. Over the years Pete won 2 big West championships, 3 All Americans (only all Americans in school history) and over 200 wins at Division I level (most all time at UCSB).
Peter has a bachelors of science degree in physical education from CS Bakersfield 1985 and he is a USPTA certified professional since 1992.
You can reach Pete at pete@sbschooloftennis.com
Maia Semerdjieva
Head Coach - Juniors Development
Tennis Pro
Maia Semerdjieva grew up in Sofia, Bulgaria and she plays tennis since 3 years old. During her junior tennis years, she actively participated and competed in many national, European (ETA) and ITF tournaments. In 2006, she came to the United States on a full scholarship playing NCAA Division I for Tennessee Technological University (TnTech) and later on for Grambling State University (GSU) in Louisiana.
Maia was awarded Freshman of the Year Award and led TnTech to the semifinals of the Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) in 2006. In addition, she was the No.1 seeded player and a team captain for GSU during 3 consecutive years (2007-2010) and led her team to the semifinals of the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) during all three years, where she was awarded First-Team SWAC and Second-Team SWAC on multiple occasions.
From 2007 to 2010, Maia was a Tennis Coach in Kinyon/Jones Tennis Camp in Dartmouth College, NH, where she managed the 10-17 age group summer camps and coached junior tennis clinics totaling more than 50 children weekly. She is also a certified ITF Chair Umpire and a Line Judge.
Maia graduated from GSU in Business Management in 2010 and began her graduate education in August 2011 at GSU, as she is pursuing a Master of Science degree in Sport Administration with an anticipated graduation date of May, 2013.
Erik Pupkowski
Head Coach - Juniors Development
Tennis Pro
Before joining Santa Barbara School of Tennis, Eric worked as Director of High Performance for the juniors at Global Tennis Academy (Santa Clarita, CA). Before this, Eric was an Assistant Coach at The Country Club of Little Rock (Little Rock, AR).
Eric studied psychology/sports psychology in Northwest Arkansas Community College.
As a player, Eric was one of the top junior tennis players in the nation. He was Junior Arkansas Champion and ranked #1 in all Boys Division 12’s 14’s 16’s and 18’s, ranked #1 for Boys Division 14’s and 16’s in the Southern District, and was Top 10 in Boys 14’s and 16’s for the National Division.
• The 2013 summer tennis camps begin on June 3th at both locations
• We are proud to announce the new "Tennis and Language Program” for international tennis players. The program is for non-English speaking junior tennis players who can come and train at Santa Barbara School of Tennis as they learn English in a leading ESL program in Santa Barbara, California. For more information, please contact us.
• Please join us in congratulating Odessa Stork and Dominik Stefanov for being selected to represent Santa Barbara/Ventura Competitive Training Center (CTC) in 2013!
• Our HEAD Exclusive pro-shop is now online. It is called Tennis-Depot and offers HEAD tennis rackets, bags, shoes, and strings as well as Penn tennis balls.
• Our junior clinics are now certified for independent PE program.
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