![\"Clinton](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/\/0ad93b85-5a91-496e-9756-e6929cb57123.jpg\")
<\/p>\nAt Les Petits As, a prestigious junior tournament held in January in France, Clinton Coleman counted as many as 28 agents lurking courtside. It was there that the former county-level tennis player first scouted \u2014 and later signed \u2014 the future US Open champion Bianca Andreescu as a 12-year-old. <\/p>\n
Mirra Andreeva, Victoria Mboko and Alexandra Eala are just three of the new rising stars on the WTA Tour that Coleman, head of global recruitment for IMG, also played a role in discovering. In a fiercely competitive business, there is arguably nobody better than the 59-year-old Englishman at unearthing the next wave of talent, and his search has expanded to 55 countries, ranging from Colombia to Cambodia, to remain ahead of the competition.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe key is to get there first. It\u2019s as simple as that,\u201d says Coleman, who attended 28 junior tournaments and spent five months on the road last year. \u201cThe minute you don\u2019t do that, you\u2019ll fall behind. I\u2019m coming up to 60, but I\u2019ll still be there first and leave last. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Coleman proudly displays images of some of the players he discovered<\/p>\n
TOBY SHEPHEARD FOR THE TIMES<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not just a job. It\u2019s a lifestyle \u2014 a wonderful lifestyle. I\u2019ve got the best job in the world, to get paid to go and watch tennis.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is \u201cno cookie-cutter approach\u201d to identifying players who will become elite when they are essentially still children. They come from an increasingly wide array of backgrounds, they mature at different speeds, and there is no one set physique. But Coleman believes there are six shots that girls have mastered technically and can produce regularly by the age of 12. <\/p>\n
\u201cWithout going into too much detail, it\u2019s their groundstrokes,\u201d he says. \u201cIf the serve is pushy, it doesn\u2019t matter. We can fix that at a later stage. If they don\u2019t volley, that\u2019s fine, but they\u2019ve got to be solid off the ground: cross-court and down the line.\u201d <\/p>\n
On that evidence alone, along with sensing a player\u2019s compulsive desire to win, Coleman says it already \u201cstarts to become plausible to think they will get in the top 100\u201d, but, for the boys, it is trickier to make a judgment so early. \u201cThere are about 15 shots they need, and they might not physically be able to play half of those yet,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Coleman cannot pinpoint exactly why he has such a great eye for talent. Although he captained England\u2019s over-35s team, he was never a professional and was coaching at Totteridge Tennis Club, in London, when he decided to partner with John Morris, who is now an influential agent, and head into the player management business. <\/p>\n
To get their foot in the door, they initially worked for free on behalf of doubles players so they could get accredited at the grand-slam events and watch the junior competitions. Their big breakthrough came in 2010 in the form of an unheralded 14-year-old Nick Kyrgios, who had been entered as a wild card into the boys\u2019 competition at the Australian Open<\/a>. \u201cI thought he was unbelievably talented and we took a chance,\u201d Coleman says. <\/p>\n Coleman describes working with Kyrgios, who he spotted at 14, as \u201ceight years of complete pandemonium\u201d<\/p>\n LUCAS DAWSON\/GETTY<\/p>\n Four years later, on his Wimbledon main-draw debut, Kyrgios stunned Rafael Nadal, who was then the world No1, to reach the quarter-finals. \u201cThat kind of launched us,\u201d Coleman adds. \u201cI don\u2019t know how to describe it other than eight years of complete pandemonium. I need to put on record that John took 99 per cent of the hassle. He was doing the day-to-day, and every day something happened. <\/p>\n \u201cYou only seemed to be 40 minutes from the next catastrophe, so it was very hard to relax. I love Nick; he is the kindest, nicest person. When he got on court, I think it was just nerves.\u201d<\/p>\n Did Kyrgios fulfil the potential that Coleman first spotted? \u201cHe got to the final of a grand slam [Wimbledon in 2022]. We\u2019ve got to remember that. His body let him down a lot. Nick often got quite good results and then got niggles. We talk about the mental side of it \u2014 should he have done this and that \u2014 but his body wasn\u2019t helping him along that road. <\/p>\n \u201cThere are a lot of aspects to talent: hard work, luck, your body. Nick could do things with a tennis ball I\u2019d never seen before. If you\u2019re talking about talent in that respect, he is the best I\u2019ve ever seen. In retrospect, he achieved what he could.\u201d<\/p>\n The competition \u2014 not just among agencies, but clothing and equipment brands too \u2014 means that following the grand-slam events, and even the five ITF Grade A junior tournaments that sit just below them, is no longer enough. Coleman knew Andreeva, now the world No8, was extraordinary the moment he first saw her at a Tennis Europe Junior Tour event in Moscow aged 11. Mboko, the world No10 from Canada, who beat Andreeva in the final of the Masters 1000 event in Doha this month, left a similar impression at a competition in Bolton when she was 12. <\/p>\n Mboko got the better of Andreeva in the final of the Masters 1000 earlier this month<\/p>\n ARTUR WIDAK\/SHUTTERSTOCK<\/p>\n Agents now even flock to the Smrikva Bowl, an under-tens tournament in Croatia. Noticing the growing competition, Coleman resolved to find an edge. One of the first players he scouted was Wu Yibing, who was 14 at the time, and went on to become the first Chinese player to win an ATP Tour-level final in the open era. Coleman was convinced there was still a wealth of untapped talent in Asia that remained overlooked because players did not often travel to international tournaments, and so he crammed full a single backpack and bought a one-way ticket. <\/p>\n \u201cI flew to Japan, then to Korea, five different places in China, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, and just worked my way down through Vietnam to Indonesia. I went to every club. I can\u2019t go to Singapore every week, but if there\u2019s a player, I will know about them, because you\u2019re building those relationships,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n \u201cLost in the middle of Korea was not a good place to be. I don\u2019t know where to start with [the number of] flights [I had] cancelled. In Cambodia it was a bit frightening because I took a wrong turn and suddenly there were all these people around me, and I was having to run pretty quickly to get out of the way. I\u2019ve had a few [scary experiences], but fortunately most of the time tennis is in pretty nice places.\u201d <\/p>\n Manas Dhamne (18, India), Hruthik Katakam (15, India) and Xinran Sun (15, China) are three of the players Coleman has high hopes for, while Coleman Wong (21, Hong Kong) is now on the cusp of the top 100.<\/p>\n Coleman has spent considerable time scouting in Asia, where he uncovered Wong<\/p>\n CLIVE BRUNSKILL\/GETTY<\/p>\n Possessing talent at a young age is one thing, but developing it is an even greater challenge. \u201cThe most important skill is to create an environment where the child is happy, but you\u2019re still introducing them to that next level,\u201d Coleman says. Many of the players he discovers will move full-time to the IMG Academy in Florida, but others prefer the culture in Europe or limit themselves to two-week stints away from home. <\/p>\n Mohamed Genidy, a 14-year-old who grew up near the Suez Canal owing to his father\u2019s work in marine biology, did not have access to top practice partners in Egypt and now trains with Carlos Rodr\u00edguez in Barcelona. Eala, whom Coleman was adamant about signing after watching her in junior qualifying for the French Open in 2019, joined the Rafa Nadal Academy in Mallorca. Dhamne and Katakam, who grew up in Hyderabad and Pune respectively, immediately felt at home with Riccardo Piatti in Bordighera, Italy.<\/p>\n It is not an exact science, and the upheaval of recruiting and uprooting children inevitably raises ethical concerns. In football, the FA does not allow players under the age of 16 to sign with an agent, whereas IMG hosts Future Stars, a tournament for the best under-12s in the world at the exclusive Tatoi Club in Greece. The players\u2019 parents must pay for their own flights, but virtually all other expenses are covered. <\/p>\n Eala, from the Philippines, joined the Rafa Nadal Academy in Mallorca after Coleman spotted her as a 19-year-old<\/p>\n IMG<\/p>\n Coleman accepts that question should be asked, but points out that a legal contract with a minor holds little weight and that finding elite coaching and sponsorships are giving talented players the best chance of succeeding in an individual and expensive sport. <\/p>\n \u201cDoes it put pressure on them being signed? Probably. Do they then come down very quickly [if it doesn\u2019t work out]? There\u2019s a risk in that,\u201d he admits. \u201cI think the important thing is you just keep focusing on getting them to become better tennis players. That\u2019s all I try to do. Provided you\u2019ve got the correct care programme and intent, which I know I have, then I don\u2019t feel a problem with that. If it doesn\u2019t work out, we shake hands and say goodbye.\u201d<\/p>\n Coleman is still optimistic about the British talent coming through but points out that, despite the LTA\u2019s \u201cvery good\u201d infrastructure, tennis remains an extracurricular sport here, unlike in nations such as the Czech Republic. Despite having a population nearly seven times smaller than the UK, there are eight Czech players inside the top 50 in the WTA rankings, compared with just one Briton: Emma Raducanu<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not the way they are teaching the serve,\u201d Coleman says. \u201cIf Roger [Draper, the former LTA chief executive] hadn\u2019t put a racket in his hand, Jack [Roger\u2019s son, the British men\u2019s No1] would probably be playing for Tottenham Hotspur and have not gone into tennis.\u201d <\/p>\n Beyond the highly regarded trio of Mimi Xu, Hannah Klugman and Mika Stojsavljevic, Coleman highlights Megan Knight, the 15-year-old daughter of the former England cricketer Nick Knight, as a promising talent. Among the boys, he enthuses about Max Hodkinson, who won the Carlos Moy\u00e1 Under-12s tournament in November. \u201cHe\u2019s probably the best I\u2019ve seen since Kyle [Edmund],\u201d Coleman says. \u201cHe\u2019s the most exciting we\u2019ve had for years coming through.\u201d<\/p>\n Coleman thinks Draper only picked up tennis because of his dad, and that British talent is held back by the priority given to other sports such as football<\/p>\n RULA ROUHANA\/REUTERS<\/p>\n IMG is, of course, backing Coleman with a view to making a handsome cut on future commercial deals. He is hardly naive to that, but says the most rewarding part of his far-reaching quest is seeing a player, whose talent he first spotted, realise their potential. <\/p>\n After Andreescu won the US Open in 2019, she told Coleman: \u201cYou were the first person to tell me [I could win a grand slam] and I never forgot it. Everyone laughed when I said I was going to win. You went, \u2018I think you will.\u2019 \u201d <\/p>\n \u201cFor me personally, I thought that was pretty special,\u201d Coleman says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At Les Petits As, a prestigious junior tournament held in January in France, Clinton Coleman counted as many…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":503266,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-503265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Nick](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/\/b4660986-ea49-4faf-8442-d4c5ac3505bb.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Qatar](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/\/3ac399be-485b-4c6a-9d4d-b6bc600dafb0.jpg\")
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<\/p>\n![\"ATP](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/\/c237e4be-3afd-4279-a141-e3ba455a412b.jpg\")
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