Tennis players wanted
IN the winter of 2019, Garry Cahill leased out the gymnasium area of the Woodlands Academy, in Bray. The point of the arrangement was for the renovation and resurfacing of the area until it contained a hard tennis court, similar to that used by the likes of Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, and Andy Murray at the US Open every year.
Once ‘Prodigy Tennis’ was born, it went about building trainee number of 20 high-performance athletes, while the likes of Vitalia Dietchenko (who knocked Maria Sharapova out of the first round of Wimbledon in 2018), Simon Carr, and Ammar Elamin all used the facilities for training regiments.
‘We wanted a venue to get all of these top players to train together and that’s the reason we did this.
‘Obviously, there was an investment into it because we had to resurface and leasing the centre but the reason was to get these players into an environment where they can train together.
‘The reason we are going to build underneath is to find talent.’
Cahill has pedigree himself when it comes to tennis. Not only did he spend time as the High-Performance Director at Tennis Ireland between 2006 and 2019, but he was both the Davis and Fed Cup captain from 2001 to 20015 and 1997 to 2001, respectively. Now, he works as a private coach for Dietchenko and Carr on the pro tour.
The rest of the team at Prodigy Tennis is made up of Director of Tennis Lazo Kukhalashvili and coaches Rob Shulver, Johnny McCormack, and Cyril Lambe; Tadhg Lambe, and physiotherapist Darragh Rowan.
Fast forward to 2020, Garry will be looking to expand on his operations this September. At the moment, the centre works with children as young as nine, with four coaches responsible for the training sessions. Come the autumn, he will be hoping for kids from a younger age to sign up for sessions at the academy.
‘The idea with the program that we are going to launch would be that they will do coordination training from a young age, which will give them a good base for tennis but it will also give them a good base for other sports. The first stage of an athlete’s development is where they develop coordination.
‘Some of this will be through tennis but some of it will be through other sports.’
Unlike what would be the case for somebody who would be joining an established tennis club, the cost – which is, at time of writing, not certain – will be based on an individual, pay-persession model.
Anybody interested in inquiring about signing up for the program can contact info@prodigytennis. com, while details about the program itself will be made available through www.prodigytennis.com.