Key Performance Coach Appointments

Tennis Scotland makes key performance coach appointments

Tennis Scotland has added to its world-class coaching team with a number of new appointments to nurture the country’s top prospects within its Player Pathway.

Adam Lownsbrough

Adam Lownsbrough, who has worked with a number of top players on the WTA and ATP Tours, such as Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Yuta Shimizu and Eri Hozumi, has joined the GB National Tennis Academy as a performance coach. Adam has also worked with some of the world’s leading tennis academies, including the Bob Brett School of Tennis in Italy, BTT Tennis Academy in Spain and the Kim Clijsters Academy in Belgium.

Evie Williams

He will be joined by Evie Williams who has been appointed as an academy coach. Evie joins the academy from Edgbaston Priory Club where she has been working with players from across the Player Pathway, from mini-tennis to the Regional Player Development Centre. Evie has previously captained the Warwickshire County Girls’ age-group teams.

Adam and Evie enhance the existing coaching team, led by head coach Leo Azevedo, and supported by the former British Davis Cup player and current Fed Cup coach, Colin Fleming, academy coach Bruno Argudo and LTA performance advisor Nick Weal. The team is supported further by Dr Mark Kovacs, a leading world-class biomechanist and former professional tennis player.

Brett McLennan

The highly-experienced Brett McLennan will take up the position of head coach at the Regional Performance Development Centre, a newly-created role designed to develop and nurture the top Scottish players aged 10-14 who are selected for the programme.

Brett was Tennis Australia’s Talent Performance Coach for Victoria's 12-15 boys. He has previously worked as coach development manager for VIC and TAS, where he was responsible for the team delivering coaching qualifications and ongoing professional development for coaches, teachers and volunteers in both states. He has more than 20 years’ coaching experience across Australia and the UK, where he has worked in high-performance training academies, specialising in talent development programmes and pathways for under-12 players.

Tennis Scotland will also add two assistant coaches to work alongside Brett in the Regional Performance Development Centre while two further roles will be recruited to support the GB National Tennis Academy as hitters and training partners.

Prepare Them For Success At All Levels

Blane Dodds, Tennis Scotland chief executive, said: “The Tennis Scotland Player Pathway is aligned with the LTA Player Pathway for British tennis and is designed to support and develop the highest-potential Scottish and British players to prepare them for success at all levels of national and international tennis.

“These appointments will provide additional coaching resource and investment across our programmes to significantly enhance the support for our players and player development in Scotland.

“We are firmly committed to expanding and developing our coaching opportunities at all levels within Scotland and these appointments will further enhance the quality of our performance coaching workforce and help our players to achieve their potential, regardless of what stage of the Player Pathway they are at.

“I’d like to welcome all our new additions to Tennis Scotland and look forward to working with them in the months and years ahead as we continue to deliver a healthy and successful future for Scottish tennis.”

Two Independent Stages

The Tennis Scotland and LTA Player Pathway is split into two interdependent stages:

National Performance stage which focusses on player development for those aged 7-14. In Scotland, this stage of the pathway includes the Local Player Development Centres, District and County programmes, Regional Player Development Centres and players selected for the GB National Age Group Programme.

The Pro Tour stage, which focusses on player development for those aged 13 years and above and includes selections for GB National Academy, men’s and women’s programme and Pro Scholarship Programme. In Scotland players can be selected to access support through the National Player Programme from the age of 14.

Players who progress to top 100 in singles and top 32 in doubles ATP/WTA rankings are supported via the LTA Elite programme.

Find out more about the Player Pathway.