Toby Martin started 2010 on winning form by becoming the AEGON Under-18 Boy’s National Grand Prix Masters Champion. The tournament was played at the National Tennis Centre in Roehampton with a draw of 16 of the top British players who had qualified from the previous Grand Prix events held throughout the Winter at various venues.

Having joined TeamBath Tennis in September 2009, Toby has been training very hard to improve his technical and physical game and produced a solid, confident performance to take the title. The victory is especially sweet for the TEAMBATH MCTA Group as it is the second consecutive year they have won the title following Richard Gabb’s success in 2009.

Congratulations to Barry Scollo who was awarded the 2009 British Tennis AEGON Coach of the Year Award by the LTA at a prestigious ceremony at the National Tennis Centre in Roehampton. Barry was nominated for the Coach of the Year Award for his ‘contagious energy’ for tennis and received the award from Derek Howarth president of the LTA and Ian Murray, Head of Sponsorship at AEGON. In total 10 awards were presented on the day, other winners included Andy Murray (Player of the Year) and Heather Watson (Junior Player of the Year).

India Sanders recent progression through the U14 Tennis Europe rankings saw her confirm her place in the U14 Teen Tennis Tournament held at Bolton Tennis Arena in January 2010. She is currently ranked 79 in the European rankings which can be attributed to her hard work on the court and tournament circuit.

India made a promising debut at Teen Tennis winning her opening round against Yagmur Akgul from Turkey 7-6 6-2 before losing to Russian Ksenia Sharifova 6-1 6-1 . Her coach Eve Langley was pleased with her performance and praised the improvement in her game. 

Britain’s longest winning streak for women is over at 16-0, when Naomi Broady failed to reach the quarter-finals of the $50,000 Challenger in Quanzhou City. After a hard fought 36 63 64 win over the 4th seed Julia Cohen (USA) in round one, Naomi paid the price of losing her serve 3 times in the 1st set, all in games where she held game point and lost the set 7-5 to Aleksandra Krunic (SER), who then got hot and won the 2nd set 6-0. “Conditions did not suit Naomi’s game. It was cold and very slow so Naomi was unable to use her pace to dominate a very accomplished mover like Aleksandra. Even so Naomi would have been in good shape had she converted one of the three game points on her serve especially the forehand at 5-5 when Krunic was beginning to wobble. That changes a match. If a player escapes 3 times in a set it takes the pressure off and from then on she rolled. Again failure to convert to go 1-2 in the second set allowed her to settle and play some excellent tennis” said Dave Sammel who has been with Naomi throughout the winning streak. Naomi will hope to begin a new streak when she begins play in the $25,000 in Pinggou next week, before returning to the UK.

David Sammel, Director of Tennis for MCTA and long time tour coach is proud to be part of another piece of British tennis history. Although he is no longer the coach of Naomi Broady, he selected her at 13 to be part of the LTA National Academy in Leeds and coached her for 3 years until he left the LTA to form the MCTA Touring Academy, where he offered Naomi a sponsored place. Her father Simon felt it was too early for her to endure extensive travel and declined but the two men have kept contact and when Naomi needed support for this recent trip to Mexico and Cuba, the MCTA was more than happy to do the job. The chemistry worked and the results were more than anyone could expect with Naomi winning 3 titles and posting a 15 match winning streak, a British women’s record. David hopes she does not stop there and goes on to set a higher target for other British players to chase. David (often with Jez Green as the trainer) is Britain’s most prolific active coach over the past 20 years guiding many players’ to career high rankings and into the top 200 and beyond. Here are some of the milestones.