Margaret Walsh - Tennis Coach

Qualifications

I am a month away from graduating Summa Cum Laude with a 4.0 GPA from Acellus Academy an online high school and science academy. I am currently completing my Tennis Ireland Level 1 coaching qualification with Peter Lowther and John McGahon which is internationally recognised.

Coaching times & fees

I currently coach at Shankill LTC where I charge 50€ an hour for private lessons and 20€ an hour for more than 6 in a group. I am paid 40€ an hour as assistant coach for the Blind and VI Irish national team, as well as 40€ per person for national team players private and semi-private lessons.

Further information

Experience

I began playing tennis when I was 9 in Kilkenny LTC, soon after I was accepted onto the Leinster provincial squad in Ireland where I trained for 3 years. I trained on development squads in Carlow, Carrickmines and Clontarf LTC for additional years of training. I also represented all the above clubs at u 18 when I was 12 years old. I trained 4 times weekly at academies and 2 times weekly with multiple private coaches until I found the one that worked for me for a period of 6 years.

The summer of my 12th birthday I represented Ireland in the 10-pro tennis tour of Europe abroad at the Rafael Nadal academy in Mallorca, Kim Clijsters Academy in Belgium and BASE academy in Germany. I trained for a further 3 months at the Dominika Cibulková academy in Bratislava Slovakia and competed weekly in the Czech Republic.

At that stage I hit my top ranking of no. 5 in Ireland at u 14. It was at this time I began to prepare for obtaining a D-1 tennis scholarship for university in America, unfortunately life had other plans and I became sick for a few years and had to give up playing tennis on an extremely high level. I found the idea of coaching extremely fascinating and fun and found this was a way to get back to tennis.

I now really enjoy being a tennis coach and believe my experience as a young player has really aided me as a coach. I have coached and assisted coaching multiple tennis camps for kids 4-16 this year. Additionally I have coached kids groups every Monday for the last 3 months in Claremont Railway LTC.

I have assisted coaching kids groups in Shankill LTC and I also coach blind and VI tennis once a week in Naas LTC with Peter Lowther and have been invited back for a second term. Recently I have begun coaching privately in Shankill LTC and have received the position of Assistant Coach for the Blind and VI Irish Tennis National Team from Liam O ‘ Donohue one of the directors of Tennis Ireland and director of Blind and VI tennis in Ireland. We are currently preparing to attend the World Blind and VI Tennis Championships taking place in Venice Italy in September. I have also been given the task of privately coaching half the players on the 16 person national team.