Richmond Tennis Club

About

The Richmond Tennis Club is a family orientated club providing tennis 12 months of the year. The club was established over 60 years ago.Location : Gladstone Road, Richmond, next to the Badminton Hall. Ph: 03 544-6083

Story

Kolie van Zyl
Kolie is the recently appointed Head Coach at the Tasman Tennis Club. Kolie moved to Nelson two years ago with his fiancé Nicole and is very excited to be part of the Tasman tennis community.



Kolie grew up in South Africa and tennis has always been a big part of his life. He began tennis in the way many kids do, with a tennis ball against our garage wall, and went on to represent South Africa in Japan, the USA and throughout Africa as a junior tennis player, resulting in being a 3-time national champion.



Kolie completed his final year of high school at the Saddlebrook Tennis Academy in Florida, USA where he had the opportunity to play ITF tennis tournaments and played against some of the best players in the world including Andy Roddick, Michael Russell and Thomas Haas. He was also the practice partner for Jennifer Capriati.



After high school he travelled for one year playing professional tournaments throughout the world. He then received a full tennis scholarship to the University of Alabama at Birmingham where the team reached a ranking of top eleven, Division One tennis in his junior year of university.



Kolie has coached tennis in both Alabama and Boston, USA to people of all ages and abilities over a ten year period. He has also worked with ITF level juniors and travelled with them throughout the USA for tournaments. He was a high performance tennis coach at Bosse Sports and Health Club in Boston for five years.

Kolie now calls Nelson home and enjoys all that the region has to offer, especially walking their dog at Tahunanui beach.