Jon Mansfield

Jon is the community tennis coach at Woodbridge Tennis Club in Suffolk. On any given day Jon can be seen at the club or a local school, surrounded by throngs of young children wafting tennis racquets and running around enthusiastically. In addition, what you always hear around Jon is laughter. Jon is a man endowed with unparalleled levels of enthusiasm, patience and a never ending supply of optimism, qualities which he transfers to the hundreds of players that he has coached at Woodbridge over the last ten years. Sports coaches can often be accused of focusing on the 'stars' with Jon his attention and focus is of similar intensity whether his charges are national champions or novices to the game. Jon will never win a grand slam tournament but his support for the tennis community (both young and old) is a wonderful example of the true spirit of tennis and indeed sport in general. Were he to carry the Olympic torch he would be recognised by hundreds of local people as a beacon of sportsmanship and fairness and indeed the person that has sent a number of nationally ranked players on their way to bigger things. CR