David Felgate, the former LTA performance director and coach to Tim Henman, set out at 5.30am each day last week for the 200-mile round trip from here to Orange County to supervise the blossoming career of the young British prospect, Naomi Cavaday. The reward for his highway slog came with the 17-year-old’s victory in an ITF tournament and the prospect of a combination that could become a permanent fixture on the tennis landscape.

The paradox of the partnership would not be lost on those charged with charting the direction of British tennis, for one of the first moves that Roger Draper made when he became the LTA’s chief executive a year ago was to dispense with Felgate’s services to make way for a worldwide sweep of appointments that has still to be completed.

Felgate bit his tongue and hooked up with another former charge, Xavier Malisse, the 2002 Wimbledon semi-finalist from Belgium, ranked No 31 in the world, before a call from the Kentish teenager in October raised the prospect of a fresh challenge. “I had split with my former coach, James Trotman, after the US Open [in September] and played a few events back home on my own, but I was losing direction and focus,” Cavaday said. “The LTA were going through so many changes and they told me I’d have to wait until April when they had settled down and moved to Roehampton, but I felt I needed someone straight away or I’d go backwards.”

Hence a call to Felgate, on the premise of asking for advice as to whom she might work with. When he had looked at her prospective schedules, how they might knit together with Malisse’s demands and factored in Cavaday’s potential, Felgate wondered if he might take on the job.

“David’s been a real help,” Cavaday said. “I was dashing about thinking ‘points, point, points’ and he has slowed me down, saying that I need to develop as a player, gain wider experience and the points will come along as a consequence. I’m in no rush. There are years before I reach my peak. I was too intense and now I smile a lot on court.”

To read the full article click here