Tom Downs is the newly appointed President of Education at the WTCA. A native of Australia, Tom has a wealth of experience over the past 15 years coaching at the highest levels of the sport. Tom has served as the director of coaching at the Harold Solomon Tennis Institute in Ft Lauderdale FL and during this role, he worked with players such as Elena Dementieva, Shahar Peer, Vera Dushevina, Allie Kiick, Laura Granville, and Carly Gullickson. He also prepared developmental plans and daily training schedules and plans for all players at the institute.
Tom has also worked at the Harry Hopman Tennis Academy at Saddlebrook in FL. There he worked with Australian champions Rennae Stubbs and Sam Stosur. He has traveled the world as a touring coach for all of these players and has spent considerable time observing great academies, Tennis clubs, coaches and players during his travels. Downs has also written Tennis related articles for Australian Tennis magazine, elite Tennis magazine, Florida Tennis magazine and leading online websites Tennis view magazine, tennisone.com and tennis player.net. His knowledge, experiences, and passion for coaching and helping others make him the perfect candidate for president of coaches education.
Got a question for Tom? Ask the coach at info@wtcatennis.org.
Coaching / Work Experience
| 01/2013 – Present | Ultra tennis LLC
Tennis coach and consultant for elite professional and junior tennis players. Travel with players to professional and junior tournaments. Coach of Mia Horvit who won 16s national clay courts at age 14 last year. Coach of Gabriela Paz who ranked as high as 240 in 2012 and won three tournaments last year also. |
| 04/2008 – 12/2012 | Harold Solomon tennis institute
Director of coaching and head professional. Worked with Shahar peer, Elena Dementieva, Vera Dushevina and Carly Gullickson. Carly won us open mixed doubles 2009 under my guidance. Also coached two orange bowl champions. I travelled extensively in 2009 and 2010 to major professional and junior tournaments including the grand slams and clay court and grass court events as well as the us open series events. |
| 01/2007 – 04/2008 | Club for life
Head professional. I worked with juniors of all abilities. One of my players, Bjorn Fratangelo, won French open boys in 2011. When with me, he was top 5 in usta boys 14s. I also coached other players who went to great college programs including Duke and Michigan. |
| 01/2004 – 12/2006 | Saddlebrook Tennis Academy
Professional tennis coach. I worked with Australian grand slam champions Rennae Stubbs and Sam Stosur as a hitting coach. I would direct their on court training while at Saddlebrook and would travel 10 weeks a year with both of them. I also coached Kristina Brandi and during this time, Kristina went from 250 to 80 WTA. I regularly trained the top level juniors at the academy and would assist them at big junior tournaments such as the Eddie Herr and Orange Bowl. |