Huntingdon Tennis Centre Coaches

There are currently 3 full time LTA licensed coaches working from the Centre where most of the coaching takes place. An outreach programme enables local schools to have in-house courses developed in term time on their own sites, for details contact the Centre Manager.

Julian Payne, LTA CCA , manager of the Performance and Adult CoachingJulian Payne
David Ivory, LTA CCA, manager of Mini Tennis and Junior ClubDavid Ivory
Chris Little, LTA DCA, club coach.Chris Little
Ben Wood LTA DCA (holidays only)Ben Wood

A number of the Juniors who show potential to be future coaches, are used as helpers to the coaches to ensure pupil/teacher ratio is optimised.

Childrens’ Coaching

Huntingdon Tennis Centre is an LTA Performance Satellite Club having obtained this status through the quality and extent of the training offered to the young people who attend the specialised coaching courses run by our LTA licensed coaches. We are currently the only club in Cambridgeshire to be recognised as such.

Children from 3 yrs old take part in Ariel Mini Tennis coaching courses to develop skills from basic hand/eye co-ordination to match play. They progress to the Junior Club for additional development and they can then enter further competitions or play for fun. Once at a given standard they are invited to join in the Adult Club Sessions and Teams. The elite players move on to Performance coaching where an individual programme is planned out for training and tournaments. At this level they will be playing at County level or above and as such will be invited to attend a High Performance Club.

The Club follows the specifications and guidelines of Mini Tennis laid down by the LTA for court size, net height, ball size & composition and racket length depending on age & height of each child. Beginners start at Mini Red level and play on small sized courts with ‘red’ sponge balls. With improved ability they move on to specified Mini Orange courts playing with ‘orange’ balls until reaching Mini Green level when play takes place on full size courts size with ‘green’ balls. The Centre is one of the venues for Ariel Mini Tournaments.

See Kids Section for details of current Courses and Camps, the latter are fun sessions organised as part of each school holiday.

Adult Coaching

Huntingdon Tennis Centre runs a range of courses for adults to cover various levels of ability as follows:

  • Beginners – for complete beginners or those who have played very little.
  • Rusty Rackets – for those who used to play regularly, possibly for school or club teams and want to get back into the swing of things
  • Improvers – levels 1 & 2
    • for those moving up from Beginners
    • for regular players at club/team standard

All courses are run indoors so all sessions are guaranteed. Discounted fees are offered to Huntingdon Tennis Club members.

Each course covers modern techniques for all strokes and tactics for singles & doubles play. There are lots of fun drills and the opportunity for singles & doubles games at the end of each session.

At Beginner level the coaching covers basic strokes and simple tactics moving on to more advanced techniques in Rusty Rackets and Improvers to develop consistency, power & control of all shots, footwork and tactics for ‘winning’ games.

Although courses are designed to fit into local school holidays in half term blocks there is no need to wait to take part.

See current programme under Courses or Contact the Centre Manager