Kentucky women's tennis announces signing of Avery Pope

Another member of the Pope family has joined the UK Athletics family.

On Friday afternoon, Kentucky women’s tennis announced the signing of Avery Pope, who is the daughter of men’s basketball head coach Mark Pope. Avery will join the program for the 2026-27 season, which begins in the fall.

“We are very excited for Avery to join our Kentucky women’s tennis family,” head coach Shelley Jaudon said in UK’s press release. “Avery has a unique story in pausing her athletic career to go serve others overseas. The maturity, selflessness and drive it took from her to live that experience is going to help Avery have an immediate impact on our program. We can’t wait to get started working with her!”

One of four Pope daughters, Avery was a top tennis player in the state of Utah at Timpview High School. She was a three-time Utah Team State Champion (2018, 2019, 2020), ranking as the No. 3 player in Utah and No. 10 in the Mountain Region. She initially began her college career at BYU, spending three seasons with the Cougars. In 2023-24, her last season at BYU, she went 6-10 in singles play and 9-4 in doubles play.

Avery has been away from the sport since embarking on her mission to El Salvador. You might remember when her father had to cut out of Rupp Arena early back in February following Kentucky’s win over Oklahoma. Mark was in a rush to get to the Lexington airport to meet with Avery, who was returning from her mission after 17 months away from home. It was a very cool moment.

Fast forward to now, and Avery is ramping back up her college career. She’ll be entering her fourth year of eligibility with the Wildcats next season. Kentucky women’s tennis finished 9-16 last season with a 1-14 mark in SEC play.