Luke Sharpe

Name: Luke Sharpe Gender: Male Birthdate: 12/28/1988 Born in: Nottingham, Nottinghamshire England Resides in: Nottingham, Nottinghamshire England Play Style: Right Handed Level: 5.0 - Advanced My Raquet: Yonex RDX500 midsize My Strings: Yonex I prefer clothes by: Nike I prefer shoes by: Nike   About Me: I was born in Nottingham but now live in Essex i orignally started playing football where i played for a local team and then was later scouted to attend a trial for Cambridge United, i was accepted into the silver squad of the Cambridge United team and played football for two teams. At the age of ten i picked up a tennis racket. (quite late?) I played tennis throughout everyday of the summer and football throughout everyday of the winter. after 5 years of two sports the time came for me to decide which was going further. After not being scouted by another team or moving into the gold squad at the football academy i decided to try my luck at tennis. This did not look like the rite decision at first as that winter was one of the wettes winters i had ever had and there was no indoor training facility nearby, so i was often left sitting in club house staring at the sky, waiting for the rain to stop or braving the weather with an annorak.Early the next year a John Lloyd Next Generation Centre opened up in Cambridge and when playing with a friend there a coach spotted me and invited me along to a squad. Since then i have been able to play for free at this indoor centre and the weather is good at my local club with my personal coach Keith Tomlin. I am constantly in need of getting my rackets re strung as brake a string a week, this can be costly because £15 per string. I am considering buying a machine with a friend but £300 is too much. The grips on my shoes wear evermore quickly now as well, because i play on artificial grass, one of the roughest surfaces. My Goals My goals like any aspiring junior are to become as good as they can be at tennis and to fulfil there potential in tennis. I am taking a new step next september, as i am joining Millfield school in Somerset. I have been invited to the tennis performance academy there and will be involved in a number of hours of tennis each day alongside my A levels. In preparation for this i am going to La Manga (despite clay courts?) for one week where i will receive individual lessons each day and hopefully find someone of similar standard to play with. After my two years at Millfield i hope to receive a scholarship from an American college where i can continue to improve my tennis alongside my schoolwork. Perhaps a degree in sports science or sport psychology. My Highlights Last two consecutive years i have been runner up in the Hinckley tournament under 18s. This tournament is an LTA ranked 4 tournament and will therefore mean that if i do well this year as well i will gain many points to my ranking. I currently do not play for county although play with county players at local clubs, I do not play for county because of the position of where i live. I live on the boarder of Essex, near Cambridgeshire and Suffolk. I have been offered a place in an Essex performance squad but the time it takes from my house to Redbridge(the training centre is near to 4 hours round trip. I recently won the Grove tournament, (see picture) I also travelled down to Cardiff in south Wales where i won a tournament giving me 100 points. I am ranked in top 150 in UK, which is good considering i have only played one full year of tennis. (Due to football throughout Winter)   More Photos... No images available... My Diary Entries   Cardiff open tournament (8/18/2005) I have just won the Cardiff open tournament. I have earned 100 points and should now move up into... New Member (6/21/2005) I have just signed out and found that this site could be very useful to me. I do not have any...