ATPCA President

Julio El Akl

Julio is an ATPCA Master Professional Level 3 qualified tennis coach and a former tour player. He is highly appraised as a Presenter by Tennis Australia and became President of the Australian Tennis Professional Coaches Association in 2009. Julio also manages the coaching team at Four Seasons Tennis School working with advanced and elite students. As a specialist in the training and assessment of tennis coaches he is very well known in the tennis coaching industry. He presents nearly all of ATPCA on court courses and continues to mentor hundreds of coaches around the world via the ATPCA’s Distance Education program. Julio’s dedication, hard work and passion for tennis has encouraged hundreds of coaches to become qualified as part time coaches and many to commence their own full time coaching business.

ATPCA Vice President / Former playing Professional

Bob Giltinan

Bob is the Vice President of the ATPCA, and holds its elite Master Professional Level 3 Coach qualification. As a former tennis professional, he represented Australia in the Davis Cup many times and was ranked 16th in the world in the early 1970s. From 1971-1973 he was conscripted for national service during the Vietnam War. After retirement from professional playing, Bob was appointed as the Australian Davis Cup Selector, National Selector and State Coach for NSW.
Bob has made many contributions to community and Government organisations. In 2000 he was awarded the National Sports Medal and in 2001 he was recognised as an international volunteer. In 2005 Bob was honoured for his services to the Davis Cup. He has held the lease on Giltinan’s Tennis Centre in North Manly (Sydney) for many years. By offering three different surfaces (and due to his status in the game) Bob has attracted many of the world’s best over the years to train at his courts. Pat Rafter was a regular visitor before returning to his native Queensland. Sandon Stolle also tuned up for Davis Cup matches there while Bob’s friends Phil Dent and Bjorn Borg have also put in on-court appearances. Bob is currently an active Warringah Shire Councillor.

Secretary/Systems Analyst

Don Champion

Don commenced his professional tennis coaching career after becoming an A Grade player in the Sydney metropolitan competitions. A few years after qualifying as a pro coach, he resigned from the TCA (in 1966) and inaugurated an alternate, more progressive coach training organisation that grew to the now renowned ATPCA.

With over 50 years in tennis school management, Don has a wealth of experience. At one stage he ran the largest tennis school in the southern hemisphere (“Champions”) with 2000 pupils and 100 court locations in Sydney. He has trained many hundreds of coaches. Whilst expanding the tennis school, he also fitness instructed for 7 years in a gymnasium he established at Chatswood NSW where talented tennis players were developed alongside the regular public program.

In 1994 he compiled and published the first Australian tennis coaches Manual (“Supercoach”) and later in the decade assisted Government bodies to prepare competencies for tennis coaching. This then effectively precipitated a massive change in tennis coach education methods to the competency based procedures for ATPCA courses. He then arranged for ATPCA to become an RTO (Registered Training Organisation) approved by VETAB within the Australian Qualifications Framework. (The competency based system of coach education was later adopted by Tennis Australia).

He then took ATPCA and the whole coach training industry to the absolute forefront of coach education in 1999 by having ATPCA sanctioned as the sole Australian Sports Commission’s endorsed body for tennis coaches ahead of Tennis Australia (which at that stage had withdrawn its coach education program from the ASC). Don is a Level 3 ATPCA qualified coach and currently the ATPCA Secretary and RPL Assessor.

Sports Marketing

George Mimis

George is a talented high grade tennis player and athlete. Formerly a director of ATPCA during the nineties when he also was the principal presenter of coach training courses for ATPCA, he has now returned to provide us with the benefits of his subsequent vast sports management, marketing, media and promotion experience. As founder and Managing Director of SFX Sports Group in Australia, he brings over 12 years experience in client management, sports marketing, and events to the company. George is now Rugby League’s most powerful player manager. With a commercial background in merchant banking, George has successfully managed the business affairs of many well known sports stars such as Pat Rafter, Gordon Tallis, Darren Lockyer and Billy Slater. George has top level relationships with sporting franchises, major media groups and sports sponsors. He has a continued passion and love for tennis.

Performance Enhancement

Michael Fox

Michael is a human resource specialist who focuses on performance issues and strategic planning with organisations and individuals on an international basis.
He entered University on an Athletic Scholarship and subsequently became a National Science Research Fellow in Psychology. After graduating with honours at U.C.L.A., he served as a Captain in the United States Air Force. Michael came to Australia as a Research Scholar at the Australian National University. He taught at the University and conducted research into aspects of performance and stress. While working as an academic for the next 15 years, he began working as a private consultant with a speciality in performance enhancement and game planning.
In tennis, Michael has worked with Davis Cuppers from four different countries, as well as Olympians and other elite athletes in numerous sports. He has toured with golfers and tennis players internationally. He has served as the Sports Psychology Consultant to the Australian Sports Medicine Foundation Clinic, has been a long-term writer for Tennis Magazine and was the screenwriter and psychological consultant on films dealing with John McEnroe, Pat Cash and others.
Michael has worked as a consultant and/or been Director with:

Antarctic Commission – Hobart
Air Traffic Controllers – Sydney
ATPCA (Member of the Board of Directors)
1st Global Inc – USA
“Big Five” accountancy firms
Major law firms
Queensland Government Department of State Development
Buchanan Aircraft Corporation Ltd (Member of the Board of Directors)
Director of Performance Academy at Pat Cash Tennis Academy (Hope Island, Qld).

He is also a member of the following;

Australian Psychological Society (APS)
Association of Private Practising Psychologists - Queensland
American Society of Group Psychotherapy & Psychodrama
Qld State Chairman of the College of Sports Psychology – 1999-2002; 2005-2007

Management Consultant

Phil Graf

Phil has had an ongoing most constructive affinity with the ATPCA virtually since its inception. He was a high grade player and has had many years experience in running a major tennis school in the Western suburbs of Sydney. He assisted, with fellow director Don Champion, in preparing the ATPCA competency based procedures in coach training for VETAB which were approved in 1977. Phil is also a recognised Management Systems and Human Resources professional and for the past 15 years has undertaken various executive management roles for both large and medium sized enterprises in the utilities construction and exploration industries developing management systems and facilitating organisational improvement programs.

Administration/Accounts

Barbara Champion

An expert in organising management, communications, bookkeeping, and with extra language skills, Barbara brings and International flair to the Committee. She ensures overseas demands for the ATPCA courses, particularly the distance education training, are handled effectively and she co-ordinates the ATPCA’s electronic processes for all members. Her background in the printing field, provides considerable assistance to ATPCA in the preparation of educational and other documents requiring speciality production.