LTA appoints Padel Manager
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The LTA has today announced the appointment of Steve Yeardley to the role of Padel Manager working across both padel development and performance.
The role, which reports into the LTA’s Head of Padel, Tom Murray, will work with relevant departments from across the LTA to bring an enhanced focus on strengthening the grassroots of the game as it grows rapidly. This includes developing initiatives to grow the player base, including programmes and making the competition landscape more accessible and appealing to players.
Steve will also ensure a closer working relationship with operators and venues, ensuring the LTA provides appropriate guidance and support to help them grow the sport, including help to grow the padel coach workforce.
Alongside this Steve will help deliver the Padel Performance Pathway, that identifies, develops and supports the most promising British padel players. He, with a team of national coaches, will support Great Britain’s National Padel Teams, including their camps and trips to tournaments. He will also set about developing a network of performance training hubs, and work with other teams in the LTA to develop padel coaches capable of developing players at each age and stage of the pathway.
In all this work he will be supported by the LTA’s existing teams with extensive experience in programmes, coaching, facilities development, competitions and performance support.
Steve has joined the LTA from Tennis Wales where he was Coaching and Volunteer Manager. He has extensive experience in coaching padel having previously worked as Head Coach for Padel4all and has been involved in developing a large number of padel coaching resources for the LTA website. These include working alongside Jo Ward as content developer for the LTA on recent LTA L2 Padel Instructor. He also co-authored the Coaching Kids Padel CPD coaching development workshop.
The appointment comes ahead of the formal launch of the LTA’s new padel strategy next week, which will contain further details on plans to grow the game and engage with the padel community.
Tom Murray, LTA Head of Padel said: “We have taken the decision to change this role to place a bigger emphasis on working with the rest of the sector, particularly operators, coaches and workforce. Steve comes from a padel background and knows people across the industry. He will be a great addition to the LTA. It’s an exciting time for padel and we’ll be saying more about plans when we publish our new padel strategy next week.”
Steve Yeardley, new LTA Padel Manager, said: “I am delighted to have joined Tom and the LTA as Padel Manager. Padel is at an exciting time in the UK and feel very privileged to have joined whilst we are continuing to see growth across all areas of this sector.
"Having been working within the padel industry for the past 4-5 years I feel I can bring enthusiasm and energy to different aspects to the padel landscape to continue the superb growth of this sport. I really want to work alongside the fantastic padel operators that we have in the UK, to really make sure that together we continue to build into the wider growth of this sport, so that they feel engaged, valued, and fully aligned with the direction of travel with the LTA’s padel strategy “
Padel
Head to our Padel pages where you can learn more about the work being done to grow padel at performance and grassroots levels in Britain, and how you can involved in the sport.
