.JPG) The HKTA are delighted to announce that Ray Kelly will be joining the HKTA effective from 1st August 2007.
Ray is a well known, dedicated and extremely well respected coach from Australia who has for the past 4 ½ years been working with Hong Kong's Elite players at the Hong Kong Sports Institute.
Ray's great love extends to the development of juniors from the grass roots up to Elite level and he is very excited at the thought he can now start working on programmes for the juniors that he has been watching in action on the courts of Hong Kong during the past 4 ½ years.
Ray has, during his long and illustrious career been a National Coach and Manager for Tennis Australia, working with all age groups and levels of talent. He also worked in conjunction with the Australian Institute of Sport.
He was personal and touring coach of several of Australia's best players during the 90s, including Scott Draper and Michael Tebbut at the French Open, both of them were top 50 ATP players.
He was Queensland State and regional coach for the Macdonalds programme for 12 years. This programme was the most successful Junior Development programme ever run in Australia and Ray acquired an enormous amount of experience working at the developmental level whilst on this programme.
He is also a highly qualified coach, a TCA master, and has trained other coaches to become TCA qualified coaches. As well as all this, he also ran a tennis coaching business where he was involved in all aspects of tennis from mini tennis to senior tennis.
Ray was as a junior and a young man a player who was professional in his attitude. He was a former ITF world ranked number 2 Junior. He also won the Australian Open Grand Slam Juniors twice in Singles, in 1978 winning both Singles and Doubles. He was runner up at the French Open Juniors in 1977 and was Queensland Singles and Doubles champion from 10 years old until he was 19 years old.
As a senior player he was an Australian Davis Cup Squad member and Galea Cup representative. He reached a high of 130 on the ATP world rankings, before he had to retire from playing at an early age due to injury.
The HKTA considers themselves very lucky to have hired a coach with such good qualities and qualifications. We look forward to a long and fruitful relationship and the emergence of many good players in the coming years. |