Jan Griga serves as Associate Head Coach for University of North Carolina at Charlotte's Women's Tennis program in Charlotte, North Carolina. Griga spent the past five seasons as the head coach of the LIU women's tennis program and has also led the Sharks' men's tennis team as the LIU Director of Tennis since May 2021. He has three NEC Championships leading LIU/LIU Brooklyn on the women's side and was named the NEC Coach of the Year in 2019 and 2021. Over the past two seasons leading both the men's and women's squads at LIU, Griga has had 10 All-NEC players, five All-NEC doubles players, two All-NEC rookie selections, and five NEC Player of the Month honors. Jan Griga was hired as the associate head coach for the women's tennis team ahead of the 2023-24 season.
In his first season in the Queen City, Griga helped the Niners reach 19 wins as a team and a year-end ranking of No. 47 to finish the year ranked in the top 50 for the third season in a row. Charlotte peaked at No. 41 during the season after spending the year ranked in every computerized ranking from the ITA and rattled off seven wins over ranked opponents. That included an upset of No. 28 Columbia on the home courts for the highest-ranked opponent the Niners have ever defeated. CLT finished the year ranked No. 8 in the ITA's Mid-Major rankings and No. 6 in the Regional rankings, sitting in the top-15 of the Mid-Major rankings each of the last three years and ranked in the top-10 of the regional rankings in each of the last four seasons. Individually, Griga helped Lucia Quiterio and Ares Teixido Garcia rise in the ITA National Doubles rankings, ending the year ranked No. 78 to give Charlotte a ranked doubles pair at the end of the season for just the second time in program history, while the pair also ended the year ranked No. 9 in the ITA Regional rankings. LIU's women's teams posted a 31-16 dual match record during the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons, with a 13-2 mark in NEC play. The Sharks picked up their first Big 10 dual victory in Spring 2022 with a win over Rutgers and rattled off 13 consecutive wins that season - the longest winning streak in program history. His squad won the 2023 NEC Women's Tennis Championship and had the Player of the Year in Leopoldine Boisseau. In the championship seasons of 2019 and 2021, Anna Grigoryan and Sofiya Kuzina were named the NEC Players of the Year, respectively, along with a pair of Coach of the Year honors for Griga as well. LIU had seven All-NEC singles players and three All-NEC doubles players across those three years and went 30-16 in dual matches and 17-1 in conference play. That stretch oversaw the LIU system rebranding from two separate athletic departments (LIU Brooklyn, where Griga was at, and LIU Post) into one cohesive LIU athletic department ahead of the 2019-20 season - and Griga recruited a full team of eight new players as the first class of Sharks. A new program meant new challenges and Griga met them head-on, managing his team's social media and community outreach efforts, along with fundraising campaigns. He was also able to negotiate indoor practice time for all practice for free with a local indoor franchise.
