LSU women’s tennis coach Julia Sell really likes her job.

She spends hours and hours pouring through recruiting profiles on prospective Lady Tigers, going through lists of top tournaments happening across the nation and emailing her international contacts trying to unearth the perfect addition to her squad.

And that’s all before lunch.

Sell brought in the highest-ranked recruiting class in the history of LSU women’s tennis, despite being hired only last summer.

“When I came in, I had five open scholarships,” Sell said. “That’s unheard of. Some programs have three open spots, which is still a lot. I had a lot of work to do.”

As it turns out, one of the things she enjoys most is working.

Using her highly experienced staff — along with her own efforts — Sell embarked on an ambitious recruiting season, which saw her fill four of the five open slots.

“There were definitely some nights where we didn’t sleep,” Sell said.

She realized the clean-slate she was given was a both a blessing and a curse. While she had plenty of work to do, Sell could mold a team to her liking and build a program from the ground up.

“The opportunity to come and build a program up from the bottom was something I wanted,” Sell said. “I was criticized while I was at Notre Dame for not taking a head coaching job at kind of a stepping-stone program. But I knew I wanted to be able to take something to the top, I wanted to be an annual contender for a national title.”

Skylar Holloway, Gabrielle Otero and Abigail Owens were the first to join the ranks in the spring. Just those three took LSU to the No. 16 national ranking, which broke the previous record at LSU

Sell wasn’t satisfied, so she went ahead and broke her own record.

She convinced Joana Vale Costa, a native of Portugal who is the fourth highest-ranked player in the juniors or pros. Costa has secured victories over players ranked in the Top 300 of Women’s Tennis Association and played in the Davis Cup for Portugal.

“Winning against people in the Top 300 isn’t something anyone can just go out and do,” Sell said. “This is an extremely talented girl.”

Talent isn’t the only thing Sell looks for, though.

When going through girls throughout the world she intends to recruit, she looks for girls who she knows will work as hard as she needs them to.

And she needs them to work as hard as she does.

Current Lady Tiger — freshman Ella Taylor — is the embodiment of Sell’s intense coaching style.

Taylor was recruited by former coach Tony Minnis, but quickly took to Sell’s work ethic.

“She’s always on the court working, there is never a day where [Taylor] isn’t working on something,” Sell said. “She hates having off time.”

Taylor was one of LSU’s most consistent performers throughout the season playing on court three.

Sell said the difference between Taylor’s level of play from the start of the season to the end was tremendous.

“If I had eight Ella Taylor’s, I’d win a national championship,” Sell said. “I’d rather have girls who I know will work hard and compete but may not be as naturally talented, then girls who have the gifts but won’t work hard to use them.”

The recruiting class is even more impressive after the tough season the Tigers suffered through.

LSU only picked up one win in regular season conference play, running through the Southeastern Conference gauntlet which features six teams in the ITA top 25 as of the latest rankings.

“I had to sell these girls on myself, on the improvements they would make here,” Sell said. “Most people want to at the very least not get worse when they play in college. When the girls came to visit, I showed them the things that, as a team, we had made significant improvements on.”

The coaching staff Sell assembled here at LSU has helped her move the program further in the first year than she originally expected.

Assistant coach Amine Boustani has two national coach of the year awards from his time at Drury University and volunteer coach Michael Sell is the coach for the No. 1 American player — John Isner — and served as the Lead National Coach of the U.S. Tennis Association Player Development coaching staff from 2003-2012.

Sophomore transfer Mary Jeremiah said during the season the opportunity to play for what she thought was the best coaching staff in the nation was a driving force in her decision to come to LSU.

“Being able to trust my assistant coaches to go on recruiting visits is huge,” Sell said. “I know with them, they can get the job done.”

Now with the top-level talent to mold, Sell wants the program to grow into her ultimate vision of a national championship contender.

“I don’t want to have something that is successful for one year,” Sell said. “I want to have a program that rivals the storied programs throughout the nation. I want to be a top team in the nation every year, that’s what we’re going to shoot for.”