‘Padel complementing tennis’ says visiting LTA president
Guernsey had the honour of hosting the Lawn Tennis Association president this week.
David Rawlinson, who took charge of Great Britain’s governing body for tennis around three years ago, paid a visit to several domestic clubs before leaving last night.
Although Rawlinson is regularly in contact with Heather Watson and holds the Guernsey great in high esteem, this trip came along for a quite different reason.
‘One of the things I said I would try to do is visit every county in my three-year term, but that’s been hit by 18 months of Covid and not travelling,’ he said at a tour of the Guernsey Tennis Club facilities.
‘I’m up to about county number 28 and Jersey and Guernsey is a county in terms of county tennis.’
Rawlinson has played county tennis for Bedfordshire through the age groups and, at 69, can still keep pace with the youngsters on court.
He showed that in a tennis coaching session at Longcamps, where he also sampled the padel offering, having earlier checked out St Martin’s and Kings. This followed on from a similar visit to Jersey.
‘The idea is to thank all the volunteers that make all clubs work and to learn what coaching programmes are going on, as we’re very keen on junior and indeed school programmes, and to learn about the challenges that different venues have,’ he added.
‘Whatever they want to do with me, I do.’
He added regarding the thriving sport of padel, which the LTA now also governs: ‘We think it complements tennis ... it’s easier to play well, or averagely well, as tennis is quite a hard game to play well.
‘It’s complementing and it’s growing, but it’s not growing at the expense of tennis – it’s growing in itself and making tennis clubs more vibrant.’
The guest of honour has volunteered for 50 years in tennis and he will hold his current role, which sees him attending Grand Slams, for eight more months before being succeeded by Sandy Procter.
Guernsey tennis and padel chairman Gerald Hough called Rawlinson’s visit ‘wonderful’.
The LTA have helped finance and subsidise overseas trips for the Channel Islands’ county players, which Hough is very grateful for.
‘Without the LTA support, we couldn’t possibly do it, so to have David look at our tennis environment – and padel environment – is a one-off, really, and it certainly hasn’t happened before in my time.’
