Devonport, Tasmania, 11 September 2024 | Nadia Dimattina
As one of nine women coaches taking part in the program, Pip Martin feels inspired to be surrounded by other women coaches from across the country and hopes to bring back key lessons into her own coaching philosophy.
Tennis Australia: Tell us about your own start in the game?
Pip Martin: “I’ve got two older brothers who played tennis, and when I started playing, I think I was just hitting on the wall while they were playing. I don’t actually remember when I started playing, but I played my first tournament when I was 13, so kind of a late start to the game, and then I just fell in love with the game from that tournament.”
How did your career progress and how did you end up in coaching?
“I represented Tasmania several times, and then I went to the US on a full scholarship, played in a div one college over there. I had a wonderful experience with that. Then the day I finished my scholarship, I didn’t play tennis anymore, and I’d walked away from the game for 20 years and had nothing to do with tennis for all that time.
“Then, when my children were young, they started taking an interest in tennis. I was taking them to my original tennis club and getting them to do red ball with my old coach, my childhood coach. One week, he said to me, ‘I need a coach’. And I was like, ‘Oh, okay, I guess I can do this.’ And I kind of went in and coached this class and I hadn’t done anything like that for years and years. The next week, I turned up thinking my kids would go and do the class and he goes, ‘Are you ready?’ And I said, ‘ready for what?’ and he said ‘to coach’, and I was like, Oh, I didn’t realize he actually meant every week. Then I was ticking along, doing just one Red Ball class a week with my kids and the coach wanted to retire. He started telling everyone that I was going to take over the coaching from him, and I didn’t really believe it, because he’d been the coach there for 40 years, and done a marvellous job. I heard it so many times, I was like, ‘Oh, I guess I might be taking over the coaching.’
“He then retired, and he mentored me for a number of months, we co-coached together, and then one day he pulled me aside and said ‘I’ve told the club, I’m done, it’s all yours.’ He handed everything over to me and then I’ve been there just almost three years.”
You stopped playing tennis for 20 years, and now you’ve ended…
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