USC women’s assistant coach West Nott teamed with one of his players Ali Ramos to win the US Open National Mixed Doubles Playoff Sectional Qualifying tournament played at the Claremont Club.
The pair are now just four wins away from making the main draw at the US Open, the year’s final major to be played beginning the last week of August.
The winners from each of the 13 sectional qualifying tournaments advance on to play in the US Open National Playoffs during the New Haven Open at Yale, an Emirates Airline US Open Series women’s event, in August.
Nott, who recently finished his fifth year as an assistant to USC women’s coach Rich Gallien and Ramos, of Carson, who is a 2008 graduate of Troy High in Fullerton, beat Page Bartlett and Scott Doerner in the final, 4-6, 6-4, 10-8.
Dante Cipulli won the men’s sectional event at Claremont, while top-seeded Mayo Hibi won the women’s event.
Cipulli, a new SoCal resident who is living in Temecula and teaching at the Murietta Tennis Club, has recently served as an assistant men’s and women’s coach at the University of Missouri at Kansas City. He downed former Stanford star Jeff Tarango 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 in the final. Hibi beat Allysa Smith, 6-3, 6-1.
Prior to coaching at UMKC, Cipulli served as a graduate assistant at his alma mater, Southwest Baptist, for two seasons from 2005-07. Before joining the coaching ranks, Cipulli played for the Bearcats for three seasons from 2002-05. During his that time, he was twice named an ITA All-American, won two MIAA Most Valuable Player awards, and was a two-time unanimous all-MIAA First Team selection. Additionally, he finished his career with a school record 110 singles victories.
As a senior, Cipulli won the ITA NCAA Division II Singles National Championship and the Small Colleges Super Bowl Championship. With that win, he advanced to the NCAA Division I National Championships, where he posted a 2-2 record. He also guided SBU to three straight MIAA Championship and NCAA Tournament appearances.
Cipulli, a native of Tucuman, Argentina, graduated from Southwest Baptist with an undergraduate degree in business administration/international business in 2005. He then went on to earn his MBA from SBU in the summer of 2007.