Tom Edis

Club Coach

I discovered tennis aged 6 hitting an old ball against the wall at a friends’ house – I never wanted to go back inside! It prompted my tennis-loving mum to book me in for some tennis lessons and I never looked back.

My growing love for the game saw me compete regularly as a junior as part of the ‘Chesham 3 Star’ tennis programme that trained on public courts. I broke into the Bucks county squad from the age of 10 (with Jemima!), and remained part of the set-up throughout my teens – often training at Halton. It was fantastic to play in many events all over the country with some of the best national players at the time.

Following a week shadowing my old coach at 16, I gained a huge desire to coach full-time once my junior competing days were over. I completed my level 3 qualification the year after my A-levels in 2001 and began to coach while studying Sport Science at Brighton University. I started coaching full-time in 2004 at Chesham 1879 where I worked with all ages and levels of player – from tots to seniors, including 3 county champions that went on to national level.

Gaining my level 4 in 2007 and my 10u performance qualification in 2012, I became Head Coach at 1879 the same year. At that time I co-founded Challenge Tennis, 1879’s coaching provider that has since gone on to provide comprehensive coaching programmes at Great Missenden, Widmer End, Coleshill and Little Gaddesden, as well as Bucks Indoor Tennis Centre in High Wycombe. As director of CT I was fortunate enough to oversee the production and development of six regional players from 9u-12u. Some of these travelled to the Sanchez Casal Academy in Barcelona with us in 2013 to learn to train in the Spanish system, which is where I went on to gain my RPT Europe coaching qualification.

Since 2009 I’ve been a Bucks County Coach/Captain firstly with the 9u and 10u age groups, and since 2017 the 10u girls and 12u girls. This has given me the pleasure of working with some of the county’s best ever juniors who have helped give Bucks county team honours, before they’ve moved on to play in Tennis Europe and junior ITF events.

Now with nearly 20 years coaching experience under my belt, and having learned from and worked with some of the most respected coaches in the UK, it’s fantastic to be given the opportunity to work alongside such a successful Everyball team at Halton – a club and centre I’ve known so well down the years since my junior days. I’m looking forward to the challenge!