After finishing up his 13th season as the Braves head coach Matt Tyler heads into his 14th season after achieving his 100th career win during the season. As well being tied for the most wins by a Bradley Tennis Head coach with 103.Â
While navigating the COVID-19 pandemic, Tyler steered the Braves to a third consecutive winning season in 2020-21, marking the first such three-year run since 1990-93 and the first time since 1991-92 the Braves have had back-to-back winning seasons as members of the Missouri Valley Conference.Â
Beginning his 14th year as a collegiate head coach in the fall of 2022, Tyler previously served as both the men's and women's tennis head coach at NCAA Division III Wartburg College for four seasons from 2009-13.
Bradley Tennis has steadily raised the bar for its competitive success during Tyler's first nine years, which has included the program's first three trips to the Missouri Valley Conference Championship semifinal round and included the best season in program history in 2018-19. Â After enduring a 4-17 overall record in his first season with the Braves, Tyler's Bradley teams have won at least 11 dual matches in four of the last five full years, while posting a 7-5 mark in 2019-20 to continue the best sustained run in program history. Â And while the Braves had managed just 10 Valley dual match victories in the previous 22 seasons of league membership, Tyler's Braves have won 13 MVC duals in the last four seasons of league competition (the conference season had yet to begin in 2020 when the season was halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic).
Individually, Tyler has overseen the careers of the six winningest student-athletes in the history of Bradley Tennis.  Ari Dechter graduated in 2017 as the owner of 18 individual school records, including the most career singles (82), doubles (69) and combined (151) victories.  Dechter also became the first All-Missouri Valley Conference player in program history, earning MVC All-Select recognition from the league's head coaches in 2015, 2016 and 2017.  Dechter has been joined in the All-MVC club by five Braves the last three years. Notably, the 2018-19 squad saw five players earn all-conference honors, including the first, first-team selections in program history:  Bozana Lojpur (No. 2 singles), Natalia Barbery (No. 4 singles), Barbery/Sandra Maletin (No. 1 doubles) and Lindsay Haight/Malini Wijesinghe (No. 3 doubles). Nikki Perlwitz became the third Brave in program history to achieve All-Conference as she took home the honor at No. 6 Singles in 2020-21.Â
Â
Maletin was a three-time MVC All-Select honoree as Bradley’s No. 1 Singles player, smashing the program record with 48 career wins in the No. 1 spot. Perlwitz graduated as the fifth winningest singles player in Bradley Tennis history (65) and along with Lojpur, is in a tie for program record for most wins by a doubles pair (43).
Â
While achieving at new levels on the court, the Braves continue to excel in the classroom under Tyler's direction.  Among the highlights, 11 different Bradley players have earned Missouri Valley Conference Scholar-Athlete recognition in Tyler's nine years, including a trio of first-team selections - Dechter, Ashley Thai and Wijesinghe - in 2017.  Dechter also was selected the 2017 recipient of Bradley University's Charles Orsborn Award, which is the most-distinguished award annually presented by the University to the graduating student-athlete who has best combined athletic and academic achievement with community service.
In addition, Wijesinghe enjoyed one of the most well-rounded collegiate student-athlete careers in Bradley Athletics history. Graduating in 2019 with a 3.99 cumulative grade point average as a triple major (biochemistry, philosophy and Spanish), Wijesinghe was selected a third-team 2019 Google Cloud CoSIDA Academic All-American. Well known throughout the Bradley campus for her lengthy list of service activities, Wijesinghe also received national recognition in 2018 as the NCAA Division I Women’s Tennis recipient of the prestigious ITA/Arthur Ashe Sportsmanship & Leadership Award in 2018, which was presented during a special ceremony at the 2018 U.S. Open in Flushing Meadows, NY.  Wijesinghe also was the 2019 Central Region recipient of the ITA/Cissie Leary Award for Sportsmanship.
Â
For the seventh time in program history, and the fifth time under Tyler, the Bradley Women's Tennis program landed three student-athletes on the Missouri Valley Conference Women's Tennis Scholar-Athlete Team in 2020-21, headlined by Barbery, who was a repeat selection on the MVC Women’s Tennis Scholar-Athlete Team. Barbery became the sixth student-athlete in program history to earn first-team recognition more than once in her career and first student-athlete in program history to qualify from the MVC Women's Tennis Scholar-Athlete Team four times.
From 2009-13, Tyler directed both the men’s and women’s tennis programs at Wartburg College, growing the participation numbers in both programs to record levels while improving the competitive success of both programs. Tyler was named the Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Men’s Tennis Coach of the Year and the USPTA Missouri Valley Collegiate Coach of the Year in 2010 after leading the Knights to their best conference finish (third) in 15 years.
On the women’s side, Tyler inherited a program that had finished seventh in the IIAC the year before his arrival and he immediately led the team to a 13-3 overall record to set the school season record for victories in a season in 2009-10. He has guided the Knights to four consecutive third-place finishes in the IIAC.
Prior to taking over the Wartburg programs, Tyler was the assistant men’s and women’s tennis coach at Colgate during the 2008-09 season, helping the Raiders men’s program to a second-place finish in the 2009 Patriot League race. He also helped Colgate’s No. 1 women’s player earn first-team All-Patriot League honors in 2009.
After graduating in 2005 with a degree in psychology from Mesa State College, where he was an all-conference doubles player, Tyler embarked on a six-year professional playing career. The 2006 USPTA Intermountain Region Men’s Open Player of the Year, Tyler was the top-ranked pro in Iowa for three consecutive years (2009-10-11) and was ranked as high as 174th in the U.S. Men’s Pro Open Division in 2011.
Â