Coaches Corner with James Brobin

First of all I hope everybody had a great Christmas and New Year!

The coaching programme at Launceston Tennis Club and St Joseph’s School got back underway on Monday (January 6).

My aim is always to increase the number of players playing tennis for all ages and stages along with increasing standards through coaching and competition.

Attraction and retention is key and I believe with a healthy programme for 2024 this has proved to be instrumental. Launceston Tennis Club has recently been resurfaced and new LED floodlights installed - the future is bright.

The coaching and competition programme for this year will be bigger and better than ever which will see players given the opportunity to play at Wimbledon.

The final event that I ran in 2024 was the Launceston Cup - a termly fixture played between Launceston College and St Joseph’s.

The fixture sees six players from each school play two matches, a singles and doubles and nine matches in total.

This fixture was played for the final time in 2024 on Monday, December 10 with Launceston running out 6-3 winners.

It was great to see this fixture played with a great attitude by all players with some very competitive matches.

The player of the match for Launceston College was Bethany Strawbridge as decided by their opponents, with Mollie Hobbs the beneficiary of the Launceston decision.

There were handshakes all round and this fixture will continue along with many more in 2025. Finally I presented the Stanbury Cup to the winning Launceston College team.

The Stanbury Cup was sponsored by the late Chris Stanbury who will forever be in the memories of all whom had the pleasure to be involved with Chris at Launceston Tennis Club and beyond.