Mitchell, Martin Impress Coach

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30603, 20 November 1964, Page 17

Mitchell, Martin Impress Coach

The Anstralian professional tennis coach, L. Atkins, now resident in Wellington, who has been coaching at the United club for a few days, is again most impressed with the potential of Canterbury’s two leading boys, J. Mitchell and J. Martin.

The 16-year-old Mitchell has been more concerned with his studies recently and has had little tennis, but Atkins hopes he will soon get the concentrated practise to win

him a place in the Linton Cup side to go to Australia. He felt he was one New Zealand junior who could reap untold benefit from the trip. Atkins said that when he coached Mitchell again this week he found him rather wristy but he was so quick to adjust his game that by the end of their session he was hitting through the ball excellently. Martin, he thought, was making too many errors but that was not such a bad sign because he was attacking and hitting the ball well. The hitter could always be toned down a little but it was much harder to bring the “puddler” up. As well as the two juniors, Atkins has coached a number of individual members of the United club and some Christ’s College boys. Today, he will go to Nelson to coach for a time before he returns to Wellington. He will later attend the national championships in Christchurch and will be back at United for a week at the end of February.