Totally Tennis coaching assistant Shyam Vithlani has added the Professional Tennis Registry (PTR) qualification to his list of achievements.

Vithlani successfully completed the course at the David Lloyd club in Bristol, gaining the instructor-level qualification.

He completed all five sections on the five-day course, achieving the highest result of "professional level" on the teaching, drills, skills and error detection modules and instructor level on the written sections giving him his overall instructor qualification.

The PTR was founded in 1976 by Dennis Van der Meer and since then it has provided members with numerous benefits to assist them in their careers as tennis coaches.

With more than 13,000 members in 126 countries, the PTR's mission is to educate, certify and service tennis teachers and coaches around the world in order to grow the game.

The five-day course includes membership of the PTR and manual encompassing the techniques of the Van Der Meer "Standard Teaching Method".

Students are taught progressions to 21 strokes adding demonstration skills to players' games so that everyone will be capable of demonstrating to their players how to perform strokes simply and effectively.

Being able to spot technical errors of a player is very important and the course focused on how to spot and correct errors using simple corrective techniques.

Vithlani, another Totally Tennis home-grown coach, started playing tennis as a young child with his sister in the club's Saturday morning fun-based sessions, progressing through the performance squad programme.

He then became an assistant coach whilst still at Queen Mary's College, gaining the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) Tennis Assistants qualification as well as representing the college in all the senior students' tennis competitions.

Vithlani has also had an off-court role at Totally Tennis as part of the administration team and he is now embarking on the next phase of his life at Sheffield Hallam University where he will be studying Sports Development.

He will continue his dual role at Totally Tennis in his breaks from University and will continue coaching at Rustlings Lawn Tennis Club in Sheffield.

The PTR certification is an internationally-recognised tennis teaching and coaching certification and Vithlani can now go on to take his Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) Development Coach Award (DCA) which is the first rung on the LTA's professional coaching ladder.

Head coach Shane Deacon said "Shyam has done very well in gaining the PTR Instructor-level qualification. He has been a great asset to the club both on and off court and we wish him well at university and look forward to seeing him back working with us in the holidays."

11:19am Tuesday 9th October 2007

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