Two Tennis Coaches In To Train Young Players

Two tennis coaches from a London-based organisation, Gap Sports Abroad, are curently in Ghana to help improve upon the performance of tennis players. They are Ms Charlotte Wallis and Mr Christian Dorin.

The tennis volunteers who have been in the country for barely a month ago expected to end their services between by April.In an interview with Mr Dorin at the Accra Stadium Tennis Court, he said he and his colleague choise to assist Ghana because they had seen some Ghanaian players play in international meets and were touched by their spirit hence the decision to learn from them "while they learn from us", he added.

"We've just passed out from a tennis coaching training institude and are in Ghana to train others as our maiden assignment is an opportunity for us to test our ability outside home", he said.He pointed out that Ghana has lots of budding talents but lack what it takes to bring them up. He said training facilities for the players are not enough to push them to the level the nation desires.

"The first day I trained with them the guys could not rally the balls because l realised they were hitting it very hard therefore sending most of them out", Mr Dorin noted.He said the players had to use extra strength because the strings of their rackets were very weak to send the ball across the net, a practice which he said would not help Ghana to produce competent players for international meets.
He, however, advised that racket strings should changed every two weeks to enhance the performance of the up-and-coming tennis players.Adding to what her colleague said, Ms Charlotte Wallis observed that the players had the zeal to attach perfection to their career but the missing ingredient was training logistics that would see their dream through.
Ms Wallis urged officials of the Ghana Tennis Association (GTA), to go all out to secure sponsorship to help develop the sport. She expressed the hope that Ghana would excel in the upcoming Africa Junior Championships slate for Tunisia in Apr.
Touching on their preparation, the head coach of the GTA, Mr David Churcher said with the assistance of the two foreign coaches, the players are undergoing serious training that to build them physically and skillfully enough to avoid minor faults in international tournaments. He said with the combination of education and training, it had been difficult to work on the physical aspect of the team.
"They don't actually have enough time for training because they normally close late from school, but we hope to do something about it". He added that for now, the association is short of coaches and with the presence of Charlotte and Dorin, there will be a tremendous improvement before they emplane to Tunisia.
Mr Churcher noted that Ghana has an automatic qualification to participate in the African championships without playing qualifying the series because of the mark she had made in the hoop of Africa tennis.
According to the rules of the championships, countries which fall within groups A and B are automatic qualifiers while those in C and D will have to battle it out in the qualifying series to book their ticke.