ABILENE -- Director of Abilene Christian Tennis Juan Nunez announced Thursday the signing of Dario Kmet to a National Letter of Intent.
A native of Sydney, Australia, Kmet previously attended McDonald College (Australia) before competing for Eastern Florida State College in Cocoa, Fla., where he is currently a sophomore.
The Titans are off to a 9-1 start in 2021 and Kmet is the No. 5 ranked JUCO player according to Universal Tennis Rating (UTR). Despite a shortened 2020 campaign due to COVID, Kmet still finished the year as the No. 17 ranked singles player and as one half of the No. 12 ranked doubles team in the NJCAA.
"I am extremely excited about bringing Dario to Abilene Christian," said Nunez, "not only because of his tennis prowess but because of who he is as a person and competitor. He will fit perfectly into our program and culture.
"Dario possesses a lot of energy and comes with quality college experience from two seasons at Eastern Florida State. He is well coached and competes at a very high level, so his experience will be key for our team."
Prior to coming stateside, Kmet represented Australia at the 2019 International School Sports Federation World Schools Tennis Championship in Castel di Sango, Italy. He also achieved a career-high Junior ITF ranking of 499.
Kmet will join a Wildcats' roster that's expected to lose only one player to graduation (senior
Joaquin Delgado). They will return senior
Riley Tran, juniors
Oswaldo Cano and
Savan Chhabra, plus sophomores
Mihaly Deli,
Ryan Flanagan,
Jose Maria Rastrojo and Andrew Otzenberg.
"We have a great foundation already in place so to add someone like Dario to a solid recruiting class is very exciting," said Nunez. "More than anything I can't wait for all of these guys to be together. We have a great group that likes to spend time together and it won't be any different with the four guys coming in."
Nunez also credits assistant coach
Taylor Rodgers and Director of Compliance
Heather Wyatt for helping the program sign Kmet.
"They worked really hard to make things happen with Dario," said Nunez. "It was definitely a team effort."
