GPS standout Maddox Bandy has committed to continue her tennis career at Lipscomb University.
Maddox BandyGirls Preparatory School tennis standout Maddox Bandy has committed to play collegiately for Lipscomb and plans to sign with the Nashville university on April 11.
Already she has been an area Best of Preps first-team selection three years, after earning doubles recognition as an eighth-grader. She was part of TSSAA doubles state titles in 2015 and 2016 and last year reached the Division II-AA singles semifinals while helping GPS finish runner-up in the team tournament.
She and her mom, Meg Bandy, won the Mother-Daughter national clay courts championship last October in Naples, Fla., and Maddox recently was presented the USTA Tennessee Junior Sportsmanship Award for 2017.
She gave serious consideration to playing for Chad Camper at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, the alma mater of both her mother and GPS coach Sue Bartlett, and she also liked the nationally ranked NCAA Division III program at Sewanee. But Lipscomb won out over them and others, including Alabama-Birmingham, for a variety of reasons.
"I really like Nashville and have several friends who go to school in Nashville and really love it," she said, "and I like the campus. It's a little smaller school and everything is easy to reach. I think the tennis program is very challenging and I really like their coach (Jamie Aid), and they have a really good staff for tennis."
She's looking forward to continuing to improve, in other words, and Bartlett sees that happening.
"Maddox has always played at the top of our lineup, but she is only going to get better as she works with strong teammates and faces good competition," the GPS coach said. "All her shots are good and her net play is really good, but she will just keep improving. She's got great days ahead of her."