The Rise of Female Coaches in British Tennis

 

I have always been extremely lucky in loving what I do for a living, but have always felt like the only female coach in an organisation or one of a very few. The fact is that only 23% of LTA tennis coaches in the UK are female explains the above experience.

Luckily I have always been a bit of a tomboy and held my ground in a male dominated world but an initiative such as She Rallies is beyond refreshing, the idea is to coach the next generation of female coaches, which will help raise standards of tennis provision across the country and attract and retain women and girls as active participants in the sport.

 

 

What is She Rallies?

The initiative lead by Judy Murray, aims to empower current female coaches to inspire the next generation of female coaches to come through is the only way to change the above statistic.

The initiative ’She Rallies’ was launched with a conference in central Birmingham on Friday, 3 February, featuring a range of speakers from sport and sport media, having a room full of female coaches was the first of its kind and the sense of unity, positivity and female power in the room was something that I have not felt in the Tennis world ever before.

 

 

 

 

Impact

It was the conference that I had attended that normalized Tennis and of course had the technical elements and progressions, but refreshingly concentrated on equally as important aspects including energy, motivation and looking at the coach as a person and recognizing coaching styles.

Sharing ideas and growing together provides the catalyst to improve and grow the current LTA female coaching workforce and I am excited to be a part of and see the impact that She Rallies can make.

As a coach I firmly believe that you never ever stop learning and providing a positive, cohesive environment that we can work towards increasing participation and getting more women and girls involved in Tennis is the start of a an extremely positive journey.

Inspiring words from Australia’s Emma Doyle at the She Rallies Birmingham conference.

 

For more information on the She Rallies initiative, please go to www.sherallies.com


Bio: Emma is a LTA Level 3 Coach, who has coached in 7 countries across 4 different continents in the last 12 years, including Australia, the USA, Egypt, Tenerife and the U.K.  Emma’s speciality is engaging people back in to tennis. She is also a big driver of social tennis, including heading up over 10 Nike Tennis Tuesdays women’s social sessions across London. For this reason Emma is a particular fan of Serena Williams, whose passion and dedication for tennis has inspired countless women to get involved.  Outside of coaching Emma plays on the touchtennis international tour (www.touchtennis.com). She is currently the World Women’s No2 and is sponsored by the tennis brand Babolat.  Apart from Tennis, Emma is passionate about fitness and holds a REPS Level 3 Personal Trainer qualification. On weekends she also masquerades as an avid Arsenal fan.