MALENY Tennis Club’s new coach Janos Kroyherr has his eyes set on lifting the prominence and skills within the hinterland club as he takes the reins for the second time.
Janos spoke to GC&M News about his journey to Maleny and his plans for the club.
He said some his initiatives for the junior players include local competitions and the implementation of his personally curated coaching style, ‘coaching, practice, match play’ (CPM).
“We are going to run tournaments in conjunction with Kilcoy once a month between clubs, and two of the four tournaments will be club championships, getting kids playing for the club, and inter-match competitions,” he said.
“I’m very energetic so I keep up a very high intensity levels up there just to keep the kids engaged but the way I coach is through a CPM method, which starts with watching the kids in match play at their skill level.
“Then as a coach I watch them play and identify what needs work, coach them by explaining what they can work on and exercises they can do to improve, then extensive practice to focus on strengthening their weaknesses.”
Janos will also be coaching the ‘tennis in schools’ program at the club with the Maleny State Primary School run by Tennis Queensland, to get more kids interested in tennis.
The natural sportsman first started playing tennis after moving to Melbourne from England aged 10. After trying out cricket, football and tennis, he found himself leaning towards tennis, where he excelled.
After years of training, he ventured to the US with a college scholarship, but heart complications cut short his playing career.
“I ended up passing out on the court in Georgia and went to hospital and they operated but it didn’t work, so that stopped my playing and for the remainder of my visa I started coaching,” he said.
“Then I came back to Melbourne, got a second operation which worked but then by that point I loved coaching, I knew I probably wasn’t going to go professional, so I stuck to coaching.”
From then on, Janos moved around the country, from running a tennis club in Cleveland, to coaching in Coolum, Kawana and Kilcoy, and got a head coaching job in Cairns where he met his wife.
The couple officially moved back to the Sunshine Coast, started coaching at the Maleny Tennis Club in 2015, had a break during the Covid-19 pandemic and is now back.