Andre Tran, Monika Rajicic and John Giakoumakis are just three of the outstanding players in the Maribyrnong College tennis program who work with coach Marc Sophoulis. 73359 Picture: DAMJAN JANEVSKI
By Liam Twomey
THE Maribyrnong College tennis program may be Australia’s great hope of returning to the top of world tennis.
Leading the charge is the program’s head coach Marc Sophoulis, who has worked with some of the best tennis players in the world and was named this year’s Tennis Coaches Association Victoria Rising Star.
Sophoulis started out as a player and spent some time on the pro tour before injuries forced him to slow down. He originally turned to coaching as a way to pay the bills but his academy grew from strength to strength.
“Before we had the academy here we had our own private academy. Between myself and the other coaches we have worked with around 15 to 20 top 100 players,” he said.
“It’s been really good to be able to combine the school work with the outside stuff that we do here. The kids are getting a lot of work put into them and it’s starting to show.”
A sign of the hard work paying off came just recently when four students achieved their first ITF ranking points worldwide, which means they are now internationally ranked juniors.
“It’s pretty hard to get one of those international rankings so for those guys it’s a pretty big deal,” Sophoulis said.
“It puts them on the map in the junior world. They can go round the world and play any junior tournament and get in now. That’s what we are aiming for our kids to achieve from here onwards.”
The Maribyrnong program prepares the juniors perfectly for a life on the tennis court and is tailored so each individual player can achieve their personal goal whether that is joining the pro tour, receiving a US college scholarship or becoming a coach.
Sophoulis said the school’s facilities also helped his students to get the best out of themselves.
“They really are outstanding. It’s better than anything we have every dealt with. It’s an AIS quality or a college quality from America. When you’ve got the facilities then there are no excuses so it is perfect.”
Maribyrnong students will be clocking up some miles in the next few months with tournaments planned all over the world including Singapore and the Philippines as well as a camp to New Zealand.
Australia could be seeing the benefits of the school program soon with no plans for Sophoulis or his team to slow down.
“We work on five elements of the game which are technical, tactical, physical, mental and nutrition. We try and cover all bases for the players,” he said.
“This is nearing the end of the fifth year and it has become a very select group of players that we are able to put in. Roughly 40 players trialled for 2012 and we had two spots available.”
