Santiago Lobelo joined the Columbia University women’s tennis staff as an assistant coach in October 2023.
He made an immediate impact for the 2024 spring season as the Lions were in contention for an Ivy League title. Columbia started the season with a 10-2 record that vaulted the Lions into the ITA Top 25 for just the second time in program history. As part of the path to a No. 25 ranking, Columbia defeated Kentucky for its first win in program history against a team from the SEC. The Lions then defeated Dartmouth, Brown and Yale to win the ECAC Championship. Columbia went on to defeat Cornell, Penn, Dartmouth, Yale and Brown during Ivy League action as the Lions finished second in the league and fell just short of an NCAA Tournament bid. Columbia finished the season at No. 45 in the ITA rankings.
Lobelo comes to Columbia after most recently working as a coach at SPORTIME Randall’s Island/the John McEnroe Tennis Academy here in New York City as a coach.
Prior to his role as a coach at SPORTIME/JMTA, Lobelo served two seasons as the men’s assistant coach at East Tennessee State University. He helped the team win two regular season and championship conference titles and led the team to two NCAA appearances. Before the stint at ETSU, Lobelo was a women’s assistant coach at the University of Houston, the University of Texas at San Antonio and the University of Arizona. Lobelo also served as a travel coach and hitting partner to junior, collegiate, and professional players at Evert Tennis Academy and the Rick Macci Tennis Academy.
Lobelo was born in Bogota, Colombia, and later moved to Florida to attend Bethune-Cookman University. He graduated with a bachelor’s in business administration in 2015. Lobelo added a master of business administration in 2022 from East Tennessee State University.
