James Van Herzeele, who’s trained by both Phuket’s Thanyapura and Bangkok’s Spin & Slice, remarked: “When I played the championship point I felt so happy and relieved I could achieve my goal to win this most important tournament of the year.
“To be ready for this tournament I had very hard weeks of training session before at Thanyapura with my Coach Timo from Bangkok and Coach Ball from Thanyapura,” said James.”
When he is not traveling for competitions, James, who’s born of a Belgian father and Thai mother, lives and studies in Phuket.
His main training is conducted at Thanyapura, with his father, Dominique Van Herzeele, who oversees the coaching. James also receives instruction from Coach Timo Sivapruksa, the head of the prestigious Spin & Slice Tennis School in Bangkok.
“We are very happy and proud of James he could win the Thai National tennis championships. He worked very hard for this and nothing is for free. Many hours of training per week, suffering on the court, sometimes tears during a training session or satisfaction after a good training session.
“To achieve this mindset the environment he is working with is crucial. Is it at school or on the tennis court, you need to be surrounded by professionals, motivated and passionate people for the game to get the best out of you.
“With Timo and Ball he can find a good balance between hard work and having fun on the court,” commented James’ father.
With these developments, Phuket is set to become the hotbed of tennis excellence. James may just be the first of many budding tennis champions to come from the “Pearl of the Andaman Sea”.
Other tennis highlights include Maria Sharapova training at Thanyapura before the WTA Finals of 2014 and Mattu Kamara, age 15 from Sierra Leonean, another talented young athlete who trains at Thanyapura and is a boarding student at Phuket International Academy, was the first student to receive a tennis scholarship from PIA and Thanyapura’s High Performance Sports Programme.
PIA and Thanyapura both emphasize the importance of a holistic approach to sports and education, where training, academics, Social Emotional Learning and Mindfulness, all play key parts in each athlete’s development.
Whilst Thanyapura trains budding athletes for success in their sporting endeavours, PIA prepares them for a successful and fulfilling life after they have concluded their careers as athletes. The World Academy of Sport have recognize and support PIA’s philosophy, and the school was recently accredited as an official Athlete Friendly Education Centre – currently one of only 13 worldwide.
Meanwhile, Thanyapura PIA announces its next steps to lift Tennis Academy to the next level with the new coaching program by Spin & Slice in Bangkok at the beginning of July 2015.
“Our aim is to bring tennis in Phuket and in Thailand to the next level with the new coaching direction from Spin & Slice Academy and the expansion of the courts to 10 from the current 6,” said Philipp Graf von Hardenberg, President and CEO of Thanyapura Phuket. Recently, Thanyapura has been awarded several awards as ‘Best Site of the Year 2014’ by PBI, ‘Top 50 Best Tennis Resort’ by tennisresortonline.com and ‘World’s Top 10 Tennis Destinations’ by World Tennis Travel.
Thanyapura’s incoming coaching team hails from Spin & Slice, which means the merging of the very best: the combination of world-class tennis facilities and outstanding high performance coaching. With 10 years of experience behind them and a coaching staff comprising of national and international players and coaches, Spin & Slice has already demonstrated the ability to produce top-ranked junior players who compete in both national and ITF tournaments.
For further information, visit www.thanyapura.com