Our Coach Development Management Team
Nigel Hunter - Director We Do Tennis
Matt Whitaker - Director We Do Tennis
Matt Whitaker - Director We Do Tennis
Nigel has been a Head Coach or Programme Manager for over 20 years. Training coaches and working with apprentice coaches has become normal practice.
With the creation of We Do Tennis his focus is helping coaches to improve, both on and off court. Nigel works with several coaching companies to drive their business forwards, as well as over 30 tennis clubs within the We Do Tennis Portfolio.
In addition, Nigel is one of the limited number of LTA Coach Mentors, providing bespoke help to Level 4 and 5 coaches.
Matt Whitaker - Director We Do Tennis
Matt Whitaker - Director We Do Tennis
Matt Whitaker - Director We Do Tennis
With over 20 years experience in coaching and venue / programme operations, Matt is hugely passionate about driving participation in the sport.
As the main driver behind the creation of We Do Tennis, he sees the natural link between training new coaches, helping to place in venues, mentoring these coaches in their workplace, assisting with their continuous development and then, using these coaches as future tutors finding the next generation of coaches.
Nick Williams - Delivery
Dan Thorp - Quality Assurance
Dan Thorp - Quality Assurance
Nicks' love of coach education began when asked to tutor on an LTA course. Over the following years he has been involved in over 250 coach education qualification courses from level 1-4 as a tutor or assessor.
Nick has always received an ‘outstanding’ grade from external quality assurance visits for his delivery and assessing capabilities.
He was Head of a Coach Education Provider from 2008 to 2016. My passion for coach education has never waned and is very excited to be involved with this new venture.
Dan Thorp - Quality Assurance
Dan Thorp - Quality Assurance
Dan Thorp - Quality Assurance
Dan Thorp is an LTA Level 5 Coach and has been involved in tennis as coach and coach educator for over 30 years.
Currently, he is Director and founder of Sporting People LTD and New Balls Retail LTD.
Previously, he has been a coach to players of all level, a deliverer and content developer on all LTA Coaching qualifications, LTA Head of Coach Development and a Tennis Academy director
Dunlop - Love The Game
We are delighted that our main sponsor is Dunlop Sports. All of our venues and coaches are driven by Dunlop equipment, balls and clothing. To find out more click the link below.
Press Release - Nov 2020
Additional Information
The recent announcement by the LTA stated planned ‘improvements to the delivery of education, qualifications and professional development for tennis coaches in Britain, with a restructured approach seeing the selection of leading education providers to operate a network of 12 LTA Coach Development Centres (CDCs) across the country’.
We Do Tennis are excited to be joining this network and have a clear vision to support existing coaches. We also want to grow, improve and build a new coaching workforce in our geographical areas of focus. As part of the tender process, we conducted an extensive review and agreed to team up with some excellent partners across the North West. We found a real passion to do things differently, use more venues and find new local coaches that would like to be future coach educators. If anybody else is looking to get involved or has any feedback or suggestions – please get in touch.
The new structure will provide exclusive rights for We Do Tennis to deliver all LTA core products in Lancashire, Cumbria and the Isle of Man. We are excited to be working with these counties and look forward to building strong relationships with all the people connected to tennis in those areas. We felt that this expansion required additional expertise to lead and develop coach development for our company, and we are pleased to have added two of the country’s leading Coach Developers, Dan Thorp and Nick Williams, to the We Do Tennis team.
Dan Thorp
Dan has been a Tennis Coach for over 30 years moving into Coach Education where he delivered courses and developed content for LTA Coach Education. He progressed on to be LTA Head of Coach Development for 6years. Since leaving the LTA Dan has worked as the Head of a Chinese Tennis Academy and has founded Sporting People LTD – a sports consultancy and New Balls Please – a tennis equipment retailer.
Dan Thorp commented – “I have been impressed by the work of We Do Tennis across clubs and coaching programmes. So, when the opportunity came for me to work with them on Coach Education, I was very quick to say yes and I am looking forward to getting started supporting coaches across in the NW.”
Nick Williams
Nick is an LTA Accredited+ Level 5 Coach, LTA Master Tutor, Qualified Mentor and Nutritional Therapist. He is passionate about guiding people to perform with excellence. At the time of writing, Nick is a content developer for the LTA’s new coaching qualifications launching in 2021.
Nick is an active tennis coach and runs a successful club coaching programme and combines this with ACE Nutrition which offers personalised plans for improving health and performance. He will be delivering most of our coach development courses at the beginning of the contract and developing our team of tutors.
We Do Tennis
We Do Tennis C.I.C have been trading for just over two years and their focus has been on providing support to coaches and venues. Matt Whitaker and Nigel Hunter are the two Directors of the business and have worked on lots and varied projects to help tennis and grow participation.
The number of venues that We Do Tennis support has grown quickly, with coaching programmes created or directly managed in more than 30 venues across the LTA Midlands, LTA North and Tennis Wales regions. At any one time, We Do Tennis will be working on another 10 or more stand-alone projects which could be anything from member attraction, marketing, health and safety to improving delivery of any aspect of tennis.
With an ever-growing project list of coaching companies and individual coaches turning to We Do Tennis for support, advice and direction, it seems it is an obvious next step to move into the world of LTA coaching course delivery and continuous professional development for coaches.
The new delivery model aims to ‘engage coaches with world class development and support opportunities, so they can achieve their potential as a coach’. We feel it is an exciting time for British Tennis, and We Do Tennis cannot wait to get started with courses, which will commence from January 2021.
LTA Head of Region Paul Bennett commented, ‘We are really pleased with all the Coach Development Centre appointments across the North region. The new appointment of We Do Tennis covering Lancashire, Cumbria & IOM is exciting, and we look forward to working together and with the respective Counties to increase opportunities from the start of next year.’
Register with us to find out about our courses and plans before anybody else – just fill out the short form on our website.
