| Intro | South African tennis coach |
| Is | Tennis coach |
| From | South Africa |
| Type | Sports |
| Gender | male |
| Birth |
Johannesburg |
David Sammel (born in 1961 in Johannesburg, South Africa) is a tennis coach, sports consultant and writer. Since 2010, David has been the Head Coach at Team-BathMCTA and is also the author of the book Locker Room Power: Building an Athlete’s Mind. David has coached players including Liam Broady,Arvind Parmar, Barry Cowan, Wesley Moodie, Martin Lee and Andrew Richardson.
Coaching
David began coaching at The Metselaers club in Schevingen, the Netherlands in 1987 whilst still representing the club as a player, assisting with their promotion to the top division. In 1989 after captaining the Manchester Mortgage Corporation League team, he accepted the Head Coach position at the Matchpoint Indoor Club. Sammel went on to work with a number of players including Jamie Delgado, Arvind Parmar, Andrew Richardson, Martin Lee, Chris Haggard, Barry Cowan, Miles MacLagan and Samantha Murray.
Richardson achieved a five set win over top 30 player Byron Black and reached the third round of Wimbledon in 1997. In 1999 Miles Maclagan held two match-points against Boris Becker and Arvind Parmar qualified for Wimbledon going on to upset the seeded future French Open champion Albert Costa. In 2001, Barry Cowan extended Pete Sampras to five sets in the memorable “You’ll never walk alone” court one encounter.
Currently David Sammel and the team of coaches at TeamBath-MCTA help guide Samantha Murray, Anna Smith, Lisa Whybourn, Jess Simpson, Marcus Daniell (NZ Davis Cup), Scott Clayton and Richard Gabb. In September 2014, David began working with Liam Broady alongside Mark Hilton, Ric Moylan and Adrian Tannock. David is an officially recognised ATP Tour Coach.
TeamBath-MCTA
In 2006, David founded the Monte Carlo Tennis Academy (MCTA) in Monaco alongside fitness trainer, Jez Green, who left in December 2008 to become Andy Murray’s trainer. The purpose of the academy was to discover, train and manage junior tennis players into top professionals. Players training at the academy included Anna Fitzpatrick, Stefania Boffa, Ana Veselinović, Henri Kontinen, Christina Mathis and Ilija Vucic.
Fitzpatrick was a 2007 junior Wimbledon semi-finalist. Vucic was semi finalist in the Eddie Herr International Junior Championships (losing to Grigor Dimitrov), a finalist of 2009 Astrid Bowl in Belgium, won the 2008 Orange Bowl doubles (with Xander Spong) and finished as a top 30 ranked junior. Kontinen was a 2008 Wimbledon junior finalist. The loss of sponsorship in 2008 curtailed the growing success of the academy.
In 2010, the MCTA relocated and joined with Bath University to form TeamBath-MCTA.
Writing
David regularly writes about sport, psychology and coaching for magazines, websites and his blog. He has articles published on websites including leadersinsport.com, tennis4everyone.com, teambathmcta.com, jezgreen.com and tennisatthenet.com. He is also a contributing editor for tennisone.com and Tennishead magazine. David’s first book, Locker Room Power: Building an Athlete’s Mind, was published in January 2014 and has been positively referenced by sports personalities including Stuart Lancaster, Judy Murray and Tim Henman. In December 2014, David published the book Locker Room Power – A Guide To Moving From Junior To Professional Tennis: A Parent’s Guide for Amazon Kindle.
Consultancy
David provides Sports Psychology & Coaching Workshops and Consultancy for professional sports teams and coaches. He has provided consultancy for football clubs including Chelsea, Fulham and Bolton Wanderers.
Podcast
In January 2015, David released the first episode of the Locker Room Power Podcast in which he discusses sporting events and sports psychology. The first episode featured tennis coach Anthony Hampson alongside David. Subsequent episodes have featured tennis players Richard Gabb and Scott Clayton and consultant Efe Ekhaese.