Miguel Crespo from the International Tennis Federation’s (ITF) Tennis Development Department and Jonathan Stubbs, ITF’s Development Officer – South, South-East and East Asia came on board at the All India Tennis Association (AITA) and the Sports Authority of India’s (SAI) first-of-its-kind “Education Webinar for Coaches” on Tuesday.

Crespo and Stubbs, who have vast experience in the field of developing tennis across the globe and have been associated with Indian Coach’s Education Program earlier, enriched the AITA registered coaches with their global knowledge of Tennis Development and Coaching.

Today’s session also witnessed the Captains of Indian Davis Cup Team and Fed Cup Team – Rohit Rajpal and Vishal Uppal, respectively, making a guest appearance before Crespo started his talk.

Crespo thanked the AITA for inviting him to interact with the Indian coaches, during this period of lockdown in many countries world-over.

“Working with the Indian coaches, working with the Indian Tennis association has been very interesting and has always been an excellent experience. We have learnt a lot from each other from the years we have been working together and we hope to continue in the years to come,” said Crespo.

He added, “I would like to start with good news for all the Indian coaches. At the moment, India is the number one country in the world in terms of coaches registered for the ITF Academy”.

With the COVID-19 pandemic situation, Crespo emphasised that all the coaches must utilise the “extra” time in improving themselves individually as a coach.

Crepo also threw some light on digitalization program of the ITF and shared that the registration on the ITF Academy would be made mandatory soon and it will remain free of cost for the coaches.