Marco Persi is the Director and Head Tennis Coach at Bounce and Hit. With over 20 years of tennis coaching experience, Persi is a certified Tennis Australia Junior Development and Club Professional Coach. Marco is also the Wheelchair Development Coach for Tennis Australia. As Dylan Alcott and Heath Davidson’s first wheelchair coach, Marco has extensive experience in developing successful athletes.<\/p>\n
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Marco\u2019s Wheelchair Tennis journey started around 20 years ago. Heath Davidson\u2019s dad called up the centre he was working at at the time and asked if he could coach him. At the time, Marco had no experience coaching Wheelchair Tennis but gave it a shot. Marco said they have \u201cgrown together\u201d in experience, technique.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe got a long really well. Heath was getting better and better with every session. After 3-6 months, Dylan Alcott joined them too.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Twenty years later, those two young kids have been representing Australia and making everyone proud.<\/p>\n
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For Marco, being part of the Wheelchair Tennis environment has been a positive journey from the start. At the time when Heath\u2019s dad approached him, having no experienced coaching Wheelchair tennis did not stop him.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI think as a coach you have to go yep it\u2019s tennis, it\u2019s different, its modified but the basics are still there. It\u2019s giving everyone the opportunity to have access to a tennis court and to play. It gives kids or adults the opportunity to play tennis and find a way to enjoy themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Marco believes it has positive impacts on clubs and associations to involve Wheelchair tennis.<\/p>\n
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\u201cFor all the people around the club to be around a different environment and being inspired by them, you think if they\u2019re out there doing it and giving their all regardless of their limitations, they are finding a way and it is inspiring. I think being around all kinds of tennis helps clubs grow and people around the club to grow their acceptance and knowledge of people with disabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Over the years, Marco has had some experiences along the way as a coach that will stick with him forever.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeeing Heath at Wimbledon was a proud moment. It\u2019s really just seeing Heath and Dylan accomplish things they thought they would never dream of and kicking goals. In general, just being a part of the journey and be able to share a little bit of their journey with them is my highlight.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Being able to see Dylan and Heath\u2019s legacy is another proud moment for Marco, seeing where the sport is now from where it started.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt is rewarding being part of the wheelchair environment for so long and seeing where the boys started to now; they\u2019re inspiring other kids. It\u2019s so nice to see when other kids push up to Heath and Dylan and they know who they are. It shows that the sport is growing and these kids growing up are having these role models and heroes they can look up to and say \u2018when am I going to be like Heath and Dylan\u2019 \u2013 it\u2019s special.\u201d<\/p>\n
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At Bounce and Hit, Marco believes it\u2019s not just about the tennis fundamentals.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe teach more than how to hit a ball. Anybody that wants to play can come and play. We\u2019re not just creating good tennis players, we\u2019re creating good people. That\u2019s our aim for kids to fall in love with tennis and along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Marco was with the Bounce and Hit kids for Kids on Court today for Day One of the Australian Open, being part of a special day for all the players involved.<\/p>\n
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Catch Heath and the Wheelchair Tennis in week 2 the Australian Open!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Marco Persi is the Director and Head Tennis Coach at Bounce and Hit. With over 20 years of tennis coaching experience, Persi is a certified Tennis Australia Junior Development and Club Professional Coach. Marco is also the Wheelchair Development Coach for Tennis Australia. As Dylan Alcott and Heath Davidson’s first wheelchair coach, Marco has extensive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6366,"featured_media":29330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6366"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}