David Sherwood is a British tennis coach and retired tennis player. In his only live Davis Cup match, Sherwood played doubles with

Andy Murray Sir Andrew Barron Murray (born 15 May 1987) is a British professional tennis player from Scotland. He was ranked world No. 1 by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) for 41 weeks, and finished as the year-end No. 1 in 2016. Murray h ...

beating the Israeli World No 4 doubles team of

Jonathan Erlich Jonathan Dario "Yoni" Erlich ( he, יונתן דאריו "יוני" ארליך, born 5 April 1977) is an Israeli former professional tennis player. During his career, he was mainly a doubles specialist, having won the men's doubles title at the ...

and

Andy Ram Andreas "Andy" Ram ( he, אנדי רם; born April 10, 1980) is a retired Israeli professional tennis player. He was primarily a doubles player, and competed in three Olympics. He is the first Israeli tennis player to win a senior Grand Slam ...

Early and personal life

Sherwood is the son of

Sheila Sherwood Sheila Sherwood (born Sheila Hilary Parkin, 22 October 1945 in Parson Cross, Sheffield, West Riding of Yorkshire, England) is a former international long jumper whose career highlights included a silver medal at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexic ...

who won a silver medal in the

long jump The long jump is a track and field event in which athletes combine speed, strength and agility in an attempt to leap as far as possible from a takeoff point. Along with the triple jump, the two events that measure jumping for distance as a gr ...

at the

1968 Summer Olympics The 1968 Summer Olympics ( es, Juegos Olímpicos de Verano de 1968), officially known as the Games of the XIX Olympiad ( es, Juegos de la XIX Olimpiada) and commonly known as Mexico 1968 ( es, México 1968), were an international multi-sport eve ...

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...

and John Sherwood, who won a bronze medal in the

400m hurdles The 400 metres hurdles is a track and field hurdling event. The event has been on the Summer Olympics, Olympic athletics (sport), athletics programme since 1900 Summer Olympics, 1900 for men and since 1984 Summer Olympics, 1984 for women. On a s ...

, and at the same Olympics.

Career

In 1997 he won the

Australian Open The Australian Open is a tennis tournament held annually at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Australia. The tournament is the first of the four Grand Slam tennis events held each year, preceding the French Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open. Th ...

boys' doubles title with fellow Brit

James Trotman James Trotman (born 16 February 1979) is a British tennis player who retired early from tennis due to ongoing injuries. Trotman was born in Ipswich in 1979 and originally played tennis at his local club, Sproughton Tennis Club. As a junior ...

. They defeated South African pairing Jaco van der Westhuizen and

Wesley Whitehouse Wesley Whitehouse (born 13 March 1979) is a South African-born New Zealand tennis player. Biography Whitehouse lives or has lived in between Pretoria, South Africa and Phoenix, Arizona but currently lives in Auckland, New Zealand Career J ...

7-6, 6-3 in the final. Sherwood, won futures tournaments in Wrexham and Edinburgh, and also reached the semi-final in Mulhouse and the final in Plaisir, France. By 2003, Sherwood had acquired a reputation for a lackadaisical attitude, a party loving life style and negatively influencing younger players. While at a Jamaica Futures event in November 2003, Sherwood delivered an on-court barrage at his

Lawn Tennis Association The Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) is the national governing body of tennis in Great Britain, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. Founded in 1888, the LTA promotes all levels of lawn tennis. It believes that tennis can provide "physical ...

coach. Back in the UK, he missed a training session claiming he was ill, despite living five minutes away from the LTA's headquarters with an on-site doctor. Next day, the LTA's team manager Mark Petchey expelled him from the LTA. With the support of his parents, Sherwood put his tennis career back on track. By November 2004, Mark Petchey was funding his coaching throughout the winter. In March 2005 Sherwood played doubles with

in their joint Davis Cup debuts for the Europe/Africa Zone Group I match against Israel. Surprisingly, Sherwood/Murray beat the World No 4 doubles team of

and

, to help Great Britain win 3-2. He entered the singles at Wimbledon in 2005, and defeated

Ricardo Mello Ricardo Mello (born 21 December 1980) is a Brazilian retired tennis player. His preference is for clay courts. He has had the occasional win in hard court tournaments. His best singles rank was No. 50 in 2005. He won one singles tournament (Delra ...

in the first round before losing to

Feliciano López Feliciano López Díaz-Guerra (; born 20 September 1981) is a Spanish professional tennis player. He achieved his career-high singles ranking of world No. 12 in March 2015 and doubles ranking of world No. 9 in November 2016.In 2005, López was t ...

. In September 2005, at the World Group Play-off against Switzerland, Sherwood was beaten in the first singles dead rubber, with Great Britain losing 5-0. Since retiring from playing in 2008, Sherwood became a nationally recognised

coach, coaching top performance players in the country.

ATP Challenger and ITF Futures finals

Singles: 9 (3–6)

Doubles: 31 (16–15)

Junior Grand Slam finals

Doubles: 1 (1 title)

References

External links

* * * English male tennis players Sportspeople from Sheffield British male tennis players Living people 1980 births Tennis people from South Yorkshire Australian Open (tennis) junior champions Grand Slam (tennis) champions in boys' doubles {{England-tennis-bio-stub