Meet the Tennis Staff

Simba’s tennis career began as one of the top junior tennis players in his native Zimbabwe, representing his country in international tennis tournaments. He began teaching when he joined the Florida A&M University tennis team on an athletics scholarship and later, from 2010 to 2012, he served as the graduate assistant coach of the FAMU Men’s tennis team. He joined the Topnotch team during the summer of 2012 and has served as our Junior Tennis Coordinator and Pro Shop manager before becoming the Director of Tennis in 2021.

Cole Hennessy joins the team from Colton, New York after playing tennis for Northern Vermont University Johnson for four years. He has continued his career there on the coaching staff of the men’s and women’s teams since 2016. In May 2017, he became a USPTA Certified Professional and brings his expertise to Topnotch Tennis. He has a passion for teaching, helping players refine their fundamental skills and perfect strategies of the modern game.

Born and raised in the state of Connecticut, Jamie Watson played his junior tennis in the New England USTA section before becoming a high school standout and eventually playing his college tennis career for Bucknell University while receiving a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering.  

As a coach Jamie first worked with high performance juniors and USTA teams at the Weeburn Country Club in Darien, Connecticut before making his way north to the green mountains.  Prior to joining the Topnotch coaching staff Jamie spent six years with Grand Slam Tennis Tours traveling the world and taking the world's biggest tennis fans to the yearly Majors and Master's 1000 tournaments.  Here he had the opportunity to coach side by side with greats such as Tracy Austin, Gigi Fernandez and Owen Davidson in addition to many current players on the ATP and WTA tours.

Jamie has served as head coach of the Stowe Boys Tennis Team since 2014 and has coached the team to Two State runner up finishes and 1 State Championship in 2019.

Ethan played college tennis for Northern Vermont University. He started working at Topnotch Tennis in 2017 and is the tennis desk supervisor and head stringer.