On Monday 8^th February, Phil Hill and Simon Tomlinson presented at the Tennis Works Forum in Milton Keynes, giving their experienced insight to developing National Level players. Phil, who currently is the Technical Director at Halton Tennis Club, has worked with many international level juniors especially during his time working at Bruguera’s Academy in Barcelona.

Phil delivered some interesting observations, with the assistance of video analysis, of what he sees in a player, how you go about communicating with them and getting feedback. His overall approach is to start with the final outcome in mind and work backwards, for example, if a player wants to serve the ball out wide to take the receiver off the court and then hit into open space, this is the outcome. As a coach, he will break the stages down, ensuring the player has a complete understanding as to what they are doing and why and start to address the areas that need improvement to ensure the outcome is successful.

Simon Tomlinson, current physical coach to Josh Sapwell (Current U14 Tennis Europe Ranking is 28), demonstrated some of the physical exercises and drills he would use to improve a players ability to move around the court and coordinate their body for shot execution. During the presentation, Simon worked with an 8 year old player called Lauren Armstrong who is around the top 10 in the country and currently trains with Simon in the Cavill Academy. He also worked with Dean Kelleher, who was ranked in the top 16 in the UK for Under 14’s and trains with Phil at Halton. Simon’s observations were that players must spend more time on training perception and coordination from a young age to enable them to fulfil their potential later on in tennis. He demonstrated several drills that Lauren has been doing for the past 2 years which will enable her to progress well in the game, whilst working with Dean to analyse where his limitations will be if certain requirements can’t be done.

The forum was filmed and the DVD will be on sale in the near future for all parents, players, coaches and enthusiast to buy this fantastic resource that will become an important tool for developing players.

Released: 8 February 2010