Base Tennis has put together a diverse, complimentary team of professional coaches and physical trainers.
Under Executive Lead Coach Peter McCraw a team of 5 top tennis coaches, plus a sports science team and a rotation of specialised “guest” coaches are on hand to take every player through their program.
The Coaches
RODNEY RAPSON
Rodney has recently come to London from playing Division 1 collegiate tennis in the USA where he was a Conference Champion and a member of the OVC All Conference Team, while graduating with honours in Criminal Investigations from Jacksonville University, Alabama. He has coached in Australia, USA and Germany. As a junior he was selected into the All Australian Schoolboys team, played twice at the Junior Australian Open Championships and was ranked as high as 15th in the country. He has his LTA Senior Performance Coach qualification, CBD level 3
RUBEN HERRERA
Ruben was continuously ranked within the top 3 of his age group in Venezuela and received a scholarship to play Divison 1 Tennis in the U.S. where he played all four years at no.1 in the team, and was twice named in the OVC conference Team of the year. He spent a year as Assistant Coach of JSU where he lead the team to their first Conference Championship and birth at the NCAA Division 1 championships.
NIKKI MATHESON
Nikki joins us all the way from New Zealand. She brings a new aspect to our coaching team specialising in Aerobic Tennis, but working with all levels of players. She is available for private and group lessons and you can contact her at nikki@basetennis.com
Assistant Coaches
CHRISTIAN KLAPTHOR
ANDREAS KLAPTHOR
DANIEL HEIBEL
ALEKSANDER MITRIC
Sports Science Crew
PETER D. MCCRAW
Peter is an expert in world-class athlete development. He founded the ‘CBD Model – Competitive Based Development for Tennis. He is a coach educator, leading tennis researcher and world-renowned developmental coach. Peter is Australian born and currently the National Director of Coaching for Tennis New Zealand. Previous to this, he has held the position of Director of Player Development at the Israel Tennis Center, National Woman’s Coach – Tennis Australia and High Performance Development Coach – IMG Academies – Bollettieri Tennis Academy. Whilst at “Bollettieri’s” Peter worked extensively with players such as Maria Sharapova, Jelena Jancovic, Nicole Vaidisova & Xavier Malisse during their formative years.
Physical: Mark Sheppard
Mark trained with the British Tai Chi Ch’uan Association and the Central School of Tai Chi.
Amongst others he also holds qualifications in weight training (BAWLA), tennis and cricket coaching (National Level 1), and in Meridian Flexibility Levels 1 and 2. He has extensive experience of running performance workshops in Movement, Balance and Co-ordination for a variety of sports across various age groups. He continues to work with the England and Wales Cricket Board coach education department at Level 3 and 4 coaching courses. Mark also works at Westway Sports Centre, an LTA High Performance Centre in London, where he is responsible for the sport science support and physical conditioning of Academy and Junior players.
Psychology: William Winstone
William has combined the experience of working as an Olympic sports psychologist with a depth of knowledge about tennis developed over 14 years as a north London head coach. His clients include GB rowing, the GB canoe slalom and sprint teams, UK Athletics, Badminton England and UK Sport. He worked with Team GB as a sport psychologist in the Macau holding camp in preparation for the 2008 Beijing Games.
He was co-author of the sport psychology section of the Elite Coach Training programme for UK Sport and a facilitator on the British Olympic Association’s Team Leader Programme for Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008. In this he worked with Performance Directors in developing strategies to handle media pressures and team challenges in the forthcoming games. He has a first degree in business studies, a Masters degree in sport science, and an accredited psychotherapist and sport psychologist.
