Halifax born tennis coach hoping to inspire next generation of aces

Lownsbrough is a professional coach working on the WTA tour but had been planning to help develop the junior coaching set-up at Queens Sports Club in Halifax, where he played as a child.

But those plans have had to be put on hold while the coronavirus lockdown remains in place.

“I know the head coach at Queens, Simon Taylor, who’s been there since I was a child, and the weeks I’m not working with the professional players, I was looking for somewhere where I could go and help people in the area,” he said.

“I know the club quite well, and in terms of facilities it’s fantastic, with indoor and outdoor courts plus a gym.

“Now with the travel bans, I’m going to be around for a while, so I’m trying to build something with the existing team there to add something to the area.”

The 35-year-old grew up in Hipperholme, attending Hipperholme Grammar School, and played at Queens Sports Club as a youngster, taking part in local and regional tournaments from the age of 10.

He went to live in Spain aged 16 to train at Juan Carlos Ferrero’s academy and played in ITF future’s tournaments, which contributed to professional ranking points, before going into coaching at the end of 2006.

“In January 2007 I went to work for Bob Brett in Italy, at his academy in Sanremo,” he said.

“I’d never worked with female players before but with time you do start to get seen as a women’s coach.

“Bob coached Boris Becker, Goran Ivanisevic, Marin Cilic and is a big name in tennis. I was based with Bob for a year.

“Opportunities to be around the professional level of tennis don’t really exist in England.

“Then I moved to Barcelona for five years in 2008 which is when I first worked with the best player, ranking-wise, I’ve coached, who was Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. I’ve worked with her on three separate occasions over the last 10 years.

“I’m working in collaboration with the Japanese Tennis Association now and this year I’m coaching a girl called Miyu Kato.

“I’m 2018 I was with Eri Hozumi, who made the doubles final at Roland Garros.

“Its funny as I have never worked with a British player.

“I’ve been travelling around 30 weeks of the year on average, and then always come home to West Yorkshire.

“With coronavirus, obviously travel is affected, tournaments are cancelled, players aren’t able to compete so it’s tough to be motivated to train with no goals, and they’re not making any money because they can’t play.

“For coaches and players, it’s a tricky situation.

“This must be the first time in over seven years that I’ve been at home this long.

“With the year starting in Australia, a lot of times we’ve flown down to Australia on Christmas Day, because the first tournament is usually at the start of January.”

Until normal service is resumed though and the WTA starts up again, Lownsbrough is hoping to begin working with some of the juniors in Calderdale.

“It’s one of the safest sports because of the distance between the players, you’re not in direct contact with anyone,” he said.

“The only thing that could be an issue could be touching the balls, but maybe you could have two sets balls (one for each person).

“If there’s a way of me helping Queens to grow participation then that is my goal for the future.

“I’m putting a few ideas together, but it comes down to the restrictions about how many people you can have on a court, whether you can have group sessions etc.

“Until we know the rules we can’t go ahead with anything but at queens they already have a very good junior programme and what I would like to do is to build on that for maybe older juniors, 12 and above, who want to compete on a regular basis.”