‘Tennis needs to be more visible locally’

Newly appointed Director of Tennis at Tennis Jamaica, Evan Williams, says there is a lot of groundwork that needs to be done in order to improve the sport locally and to get more persons playing again.

Williams, 64, who was appointed to the post last month, is the first director of tennis since Douglas Burke left the post in 2011.

Burke, a former national Davis Cup representative, was appointed in 1994 and served until 2011.

Williams, who has been in the sport for more than four decades, told The Gleaner that there is a lot of work that needs to be carried out in order to improve and make the sport more visible locally.

“There are a lot of systems and programmes that have to be planned and put in place, and so there is a lot to be done that doesn’t require face-to-face interaction,” said Williams.

“The game has been in a state of decline for a long time, and it just didn’t get up and start going down overnight,” he said.

The veteran local coach pointed out that he will also be working assiduously from a grass-roots standpoint to ensure that the sport becomes more accessible to all persons who are interested in playing the game but cannot afford to do so.

“We do have to be very mindful of the pandemic, and we have to be very careful with what we are doing. But first of all, you have to make the opportunity for people to access the sport,” Williams said.

“The sport is in a state where not many people can access it; and no sport is going to really strive unless there is easy access, and so that is one of the things that we will be looking at,” he said.

Williams underscored that there is a massive breakdown in the club structures in Jamaica, as there are no tennis clubs operating in the country. He noted that he will be making an assertive effort to improve and re-energise the club system in Jamaica.

“The next thing is, the clubs have been very lacking. There are very few, if any clubs that a person can just go to and just play. You have to find reasonable money to access a facility because most facilities are private, and it is a poor place to begin for any sport,” he said.

“We have to look at how we can increase participation, and we have to look at how we can create pathways for players to improve,” Williams stated.

“There are new training methodologies that we have to look at to see how we can improve the performance of our players,” he said.