Vadym Kalyuzhnyy begins his second season with the NIU men’s tennis team as a graduate assistant in 2018-19. Kalyuzhnyy came to DeKalb following four seasons as a student-athlete at the University of South Florida.
In his first season with the Huskies, Kalyuzhnyy helped NIU post a 15-8 overall record, the program’s seventh consecutive winning season, and finish second in the MAC. Kristopher Ortega and Eric Marbach earned First Team All-MAC honors, while Ortega was named the MAC’s Newcomer of the Year.
As a student-athlete at USF, Kalyuzhnyy was a consistent presence in the lineup for the Bulls for four-straight seasons, helping USF go from an unranked program to a program that won the American Athletic Conference in each of his four seasons, finishing ranked in the top-25 nationally each year while reaching as high as 12th in the nation.
A native of Donetsk, Ukraine, Kalyuzhnyy helped the Bulls reach the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament in 2015 and the Second Round as a senior in 2017. Kalyuzhnyy was ranked as high as No. 12 nationally in doubles and competed in the NCAA Doubles Tournament in 2016. He served as a team captain during his senior year and was also named to the American Athletic Conference All-Academic Team.
Kalyuzhnyy reached No. 110 in the world in the International Tennis Federation (ITF) rankings as a junior and also was ranked 1,591 in the ATP World Tour rankings; he earned his bachelor’s degree from South Florida in English and Literature.
