Laurie's Tennis articles

With the 2017 WTA season fast approaching, let’s take a look at some of the players who are likely to make the biggest impression and win the big prizes. Angelique Kerber The 2016 WTA season proved to be one of the most exciting for a number of years; and that was pretty much down to one player, Angelique Kerber, who took the game by storm by appearing in three out of four major finals and winning two of them. And yet, Angelique wasn’t a player who dominated the year by winning week in week out on the WTA tour but saved herself for the biggest tournaments; which is almost the domain of the experienced veteran, a player who peaks for the biggest tournaments in the world. This enabled Angelique to gain the number 1 ranking and become the oldest ever debutant number 1 at the age of 28.  Interestingly on the mens side, Andy Murray became the oldest debutant number 1 since John Newcombe in the early 1970s, and it is fair to say both Murray and Angelique play a similar gam...

Tennis, like many sports has been often been accused of being stuck in a malaise of tradition. However, tennis has been involved in quite a bit of innovation over the decades.   For instance the tiebreak, which was introduced in 1970; before the tiebreak, first sets in matches could often end up 10:8!   Tennis along with cricket were also the first sports to introduce Hawk-Eye.   Cricket initially brought in Hawk-Eye (developed by Paul Hawkins) for the benefit of television viewers, then later as part of the review system for the Third Umpire to check LBW (leg before wicket) decisions on the TV monitor in the back studio.   Tennis soon followed suit introducing Hawk-Eye in 2006 as part of their review system, where a player could challenge a call made by the umpire or line judge.   The ATP tour has introduced the no ad scoring system in doubles matches, however, I consider that more of a convenience for television rather than an innovation.   One ...

Great Britain celebrated Andy Murray winning Wimbledon for the second time in his career.  A significant victory for Murray, it now puts him in a slightly elevated status in terms of open era tennis greats.   There are a few great players who won two majors in their career, but not many have won three and stay there.   As of now, Andy has the opportunity to win more majors before his career ends. However, Andy’s victory brought out the inevitable comparison of eras from British journalists who were getting (over) excited about Andy’s success.  I read an interesting article by Sean Ingle of the Guardian newspaper.  In the article Sean gave us a variety of statistics which was designed to come to the conclusion that in any other era Murray would have been a multi grand slam champion, most likely at Wimbledon.  So far Murray has played in eleven major finals, winning three of them.  Eleven finals puts Murray in the top echelons for appearances in...

From my experience, I have developed a method in which I feel I can progress players from their early years to around 12, which gives them a great base to progress their tennis into adulthood. There are so many permutations and factors that will enable a player to develop that there has to be a huge amount of adaptation for individual needs. Once you go down the path of trying to fulfil individual needs, the time and commitment increases massively and so does the cost, time and commitment from the parents. The ‘bread and butter’ to any successful programme is having a good flow of players coming into the game, which can be attracted through schools, advertising, word of mouth etc. Kids nowadays have so many things going on that you need to be able to offer sessions most days of the week. When a child shows a great attitude, passion for the game and a desire to be better, then cease the opportunity to help them further! We have a programme called the Talent Development Programm...

Novak Djokovic created a lot of history last weekend on the tennis court.   By winning the French Open, Novak became the first man to hold all four grand slam titles simultaneously; this has not been done since Rod Laver won the calendar grand slam in 1969.   If that wasn’t enough, Novak also became the first man since Jim Courier in 1992 to win the Australian Open and French Open in the same season!   This now means that Novak has an opportunity to complete the calendar grand slam, which has not been on the cards since Jim Courier in 1992. This is a most incredible achievement and puts Novak in a unique position in the history of modern tennis to hold all four titles.   However, at the same time, Novak is the third man since 2009 complete the career grand slam of winning all four major titles.   Prior to 2009, Andre Agassi completed his feat in 1999 when he won the French Open; and then we have to go back to Rod Laver in 1969.   In Novak Djo...