Name John Morris | Role Tennis coach | |
John Morris is a British born tennis coach and sports agent, born in Harlow Essex in 1982, He is one of 4 children born to parents Annette and Trevor Morris. John has achieved world wide success on the international tennis scene with both British and foreign players as a coach and manager/agent.
John Morris started his coaching career at Sawbridgeworth Tennis Club before moving on to the Lawn Tennis Association high performance centre Batchwood in St Albans where he worked under Liz Jones, Sergio Gomez-Cuesta and Mandy Franks coaching some of Britain's best tennis players. John travelled extensively on the ITF Junior circuit for Batchwood as well as the [[Lawn Tennis Association]]. From Batchwood John moved on to the Gosling Tennis Academy in Welwyn Garden City where he continued to travel the ITF junior circuit as well as the ATP and WTA tours as the head of the senior academy.
In 2007 became a father for the first time as his wife Lisa gave birth to their first son Brayden, they have since had two other children, a daughter named Lara born in 2010 and a second son named Leon, born in 2012. Professionally John was runner up in the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) young coach of the year award 2007 as he coached George Coupland to the British number 1 junior ranking and a quarter final spot in the boys doubles at Wimbledon. As well as this, John captained several LTA teams at ITF Junior Circuit events. In 2008 John was selected by the Lawn Tennis Association to captain the victorious England men's and U18 boys' teams in the 4 nations championship, an event that was held at the National Tennis Centre. Off the back of this John was then selected by the LTA to captain the boys' team at the Commonwealth Youth Games in Pune, India.
John Morris started to coach the talented British junior Ahmed El Menshawy in late 2008 right through to late 2009 and during that time Morris coached El Menshawy to the British number 1 junior ranking as well as a top 100 ITF junior world ranking and British national doubles title. In 2009 John started to coach young Hungarian player Timea Babos. It would prove to be a successful partnership as Babos reached 5 junior grand slam doubles finals winning 3 titles with Sloane Stephens in 2010, the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open. Morris would also coach Babos to several ITF Women's and ITF Junior titles as well as career high ITF and WTA rankings, Babos has since gone on to reach the top 10 in women's doubles and top 25 in singles on the WTA Tour.
During the summer of 2009 Morris was selected to captain the British tennis team at the Youth Olympics in Tempere, Finland and the team very nearly came away with a bronze but were beaten to the post by an inspired Danish team. It was around this time that Morris started to coach British player Tara Moore. The pair struck up a successful partnership as Moore flew up the [[WTA rankings]] in 2010 and recorded her first WTA top 100 win against Kai-Chen Chang. During this time Moore also reached the finals of the ITF Junior circuit event in Roehampton beating the world number 1 Daria Gavrilova and future WTA Tour top 10 player Karolina Plikova on the way. Moore then went on to reach the quarter finals of junior Wimbledon. At the back end of 2010 Morris decided to turn all his attention to Moore and end his working relationship with Tímea Babos who then decided to leave the Gosling Tennis Academy. Morris has also worked with Danish Fed Cup player Malou Ejdesgaard who is the some time doubles partner of Caroline Wozniacki.
Morris would continue to work with Tara Moore until late 2012, having helped Moore reach a then career high WTA ranking of 203 in the summer of 2012, following a superb win over WTA top 50 player Iveta Benešová in the first round of the WTA event in Edgbaston. Morris decided to leave the Gosling Tennis Academy in December 2010 and set up his own academy working with Global Tennis Connections (GTC). Morris would also enter into the world of tennis management with GTC and has managed most of the players he has coached previously including Tímea Babos and Tara Moore. In late 2012 Morris started to manage and coach ATP top 100 player Aljaz Bedene although the coaching was more of an interim period, the pair struck up another successful relationship with Bedene, achieving impressive and improving results under the watchful eye of John Morris. Morris would go on to manage and coach several players within Global Sporting Connections management agency including Eleni Daniilidou, Jan-Michael Gambill, Damir Dzhumhur, Dominic Inglot and several others.
In recent years Morris has primarily been the agent and manager of Australian tennis player Nick Kyrgios, Morris is credited with spotting the outrageously talented Australian during the Australian Open in 2011. They have built up a very close and protective relationship, with Morris having helped as a coach and on court adviser to Kyrgios for much of the time Kyrgios was without a coach from Wimbledon 2015 to Roland Garros 2017. Due to the nature of Morris and Kyrgios' close relationship, when [Kyrgios] made the decision to leave Global Sporting Connections , Morris decided to leave too and they signed with the world renowned management powerhouse IMG Management where they are both currently still working together today. John and his family now live in Whitchurch Shropshire.