Interview with Tennis Director
October 27th, 2009Interviews
Paul is Tennis Director for Balanced Action and Head Pro at Preston LTC
Q: What is Balanced Action and who is it for?
A: Balanced Action is a tennis coaching company that specialises in teaching tennis from the ground up. Anyone can benefit and we teach all levels from schools to high performance players.
Q: What is your tennis background and how did Balanced Action come about?
A: I played to National level and was County Champion for Sussex. I started coaching at 17and have coached all around the world. In 2006 spent time on the WTA Tour and worked with Bryanne Crabb - a doubles specialist. I also met David Bailey (footwork and fitness trainer based in Sydney) and was impressed how he taught the professionals to improve their on court movement. I quickly saw how this improved my players and how it could be related to schools and clubs. Balanced Action was formed in 2008 with the vision to get more kids into the game and to raise to help raise the standards of players and coaches.
Q: What players do you teach and how do they respond to footwork training?
I teach mainly performance players and and have 2 players in the top 30 (8 & 28 in the UK). Sam Rice ranked 8 in the UK has jumped over 100 places in the past 6 months- and i put 70% of his improvement down to the fact he understands footwork and movement much better. With any new player I always spend the first 6-8 weeks on fixing their footwork and balance before touching the swings!
Q: What is next for Balanced Action?
A: We are developing the schools programme and launching an initiaitive in Brighton & Hove to get more kids playing tennis! Watch this space for 2010! We are also doing workshops for coaches in UK and Ireland and working with