New Beginning for Exeter Tennis Centre

Exeter Tennis Centre is looking forward to an exciting 2014, after welcoming a raft of new coaches to its award winning team.

A Beacon Site for tennis’ governing body the LTA, the centre helps hundreds of people from across the city play tennis every week.

The introduction of six new members of the coaching team will allow the centre to widen their programme, introducing a number of new initiatives in January.

Amongst the new recruits is Tennis Development Officer Julie Williams, who will work closely with the Director of Tennis to oversee the centre’s community programmes and increase participation across the region, particularly amongst children.

A Level Four Performance and Development coach, Julie has already helped take tennis into thousands of schools throughout her career and is relishing the opportunity to expand tennis in the local area.

She commented: “I am really pleased to join the team and Exeter Tennis Centre, the centre has a fantastic reputation and the facilities here are amongst the best I have ever worked in.

“2013 has been a great year for the sport fuelled by Andy Murray’s success at Wimbledon, and my biggest priority for the New Year will be getting into as many different schools as possible and introducing tennis to new players.

“We have already started taking steps to broaden opportunities for new players, by introducing Tot’s Tennis and beginner’s short courses from January; we also want to create “Tennis Clinics” for current players to be able to come learn something new.”

With a philosophy of “More players, better players”, Exeter Tennis Centre runs tennis programmes for players of all ages and abilities.

Based on the University of Exeter’s Streatham Campus, the Centre has enjoyed a prosperous year with Mini Performance player, and Exeter School Student, Matthew Rutter winning the 9U Bournemouth Grade 3 Regional Open, Exmouth Teenager Jack Findel-Hawkins achieving his first world ranking and Performance Coach Charlotte Wallace travelling to Argentina with the Team GB for the Fed Cup.

Director of Tennis Will McNally explained how it was important to build on the centre’s “dream 2013”. He said: “Exeter is a priority city for the LTA and we are always looking at new ways to expand and develop. We feel that introducing new coaches and programmes is the best way to do this.

“Each new team member brings with them a wealth of experience in their particular field of tennis, and new ideas to make tennis accessible to everyone. We are incredibly proud of the work that we do, and know that 2014 will be another exciting year for us. We plan to resurface six of our indoor courts which will further help us to provide a quality experience for all of our visitors.”

The centre’s spring time tennis course start again in January, and is now available for booking. For further information on any of their programmes visit www.exeter.ac.uk/sport/tenniscentre or email xtc@exeter.ac.uk