 Towards the end of last year, Thailand's former top-ranked player, Thanakorn Srichaphan, was in town and conducted a number of clinics for all TG Groups, as well as the junior development squad coaches under the CDC. He has been the head coach of the Srichaphan Tennis Academy for the past ten years.
HKTA Head Coach, Benny Lin, commented: "Thanakorn and I are good friends; we've known each other for a long time. Actually, he is the only one out of the three Srichaphan brothers that I have never played against in singles. His coaching is a mix of both eastern and western style/philosophy. It's great how he takes the best from both disciplines and use it in his coaching, adapting to the situation or to the players. However, what I really liked about him was his humility; the way he got involved directly with the kids. He would play, run and talk with the kids like he was one of them. For such a high caliber and experienced coach, he is one of the most humble and nicest people I've ever known. He is a class act."
 The former Thai number one had worked with his younger brother, Paradorn, as his touring coach throughout 2005, and he was also captain of the Thai Davis Cup team in 2001 and 2006. As a player, he had represented Thailand in Davis Cup tennis for 12 years and is third in his country's all-time record in Most Total Wins and fourth in Most Singles Wins. He was the first player from Thailand to compete in the main round of an ATP Tour level event at the 1996 Heineken Open in Singapore. Thanakorn also competed at the U.S. Open and Wimbledon Junior events in 1984 and 1985.
Together with Paradorn, the Srichaphan brothers won the Bangkok Asian Games men's doubles gold medal in 1998.
 TG coach Chattida Thimjapo, who hails from the same town of Khon Kaen as the former Thai Davis Cupper, reported: "It was really great for the kids, as Thanakorn was here for almost a week and all of our groups were involved at some point. Our players got the chance to work with another great coach with international experience. Besides drills on coordination and concentration, our players were also reminded of the importance of mental toughness, as it is a key aspect especially in competitive tennis. Thanakorn also mentioned that some of our TG kids are very talented and capable of achieving some good results on the ITF Junior Circuit in the future."
She added, "The local coaches also had a chance to converse with him on different aspects of coaching and tennis in general. The exchange of ideas and information together with the sharing of experiences made it a fruitful week for all of us here at TG. Lastly, we received good, positive feed back from the kids and we hope next year we can have him again for the TG coaching clinic." |