As is being reported widely elsewhere, it is very sad to report Julien Hoferlin has passed away having been fighting a brain tumour for several months.  Julien worked with the LTA for many years and has been a strong influence on many of our current players.

I had the prviliege of meeting Jules in Marseille a couple of years ago when he was coaching Dan Evans.  The best way I can describe my experience, is that after speaking to him for 5 minutes, you already felt like you had been lifelong friends.  He was so welcoming and willing to chat tennis, and his jovial character shone through in everything he did.  Despite only really meeting him that once, I feel like I have lost a friend.  I was hoping to catch up with him at last years DC final where he should have been working with the Belgian team but his illness prevented him from being there.

Such a sad day for all that knew him.

RIP Jules.

-- Edited by Bob in Spain on Saturday 9th of April 2016 01:26:50 AM

Sad news - always came over as a fun guy when he interacted with players on Twitter.

Very sad Julien came across, even on Twitter, as a lovely man with a huge amount of enthusiasm and a great sense of humour. I had always hoped to meet him at maybe a Challenger event one day, imagining he'd be just as easy to talk to as Bob describes ... and I that I might even get to try out my 'tennis French', given that it was clearly the language the Hof was most comfortable in.

There's a huge amount of affection being shown to him on Twitter today, from both sides of the English Channel but then I always got the impression that the players who worked with him genuinely really liked him, even when they didn't always see eye to eye.

Several other tributes in the General Tennis Discussion area.

-- Edited by The Optimist on Friday 8th of April 2016 05:29:18 PM

Very sad news.

49 is no age but good to hear that he probably got more laughs and jokes in than many who live to 80 doing a job that brought him joy and appears to have been a vocation rather than a chore.

My condolences to anyone close to him affected by their loss, may he rest in peace.