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 former professional tennis player and coach. He was ranked as the List of ATP number 1 ranked singles tennis players, world No. 1 in men's singles by the Association of Tennis Professio ...

beating the Israeli World No 4 doubles team of

Jonathan Erlich Jonathan Dario "Yoni" Erlich (; 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 2008 Australian Open – Men's doubles, 2008 Aus ...

and

Andy Ram Andreas "Andy" Ram (; 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 event. Ram first ...

Early and personal life

Sherwood is the son of Sheila Sherwood 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 (), officially known as the Games of the XIX Olympiad () and officially branded as Mexico 1968 (), were an international multi-sport event held from 12 to 27 October 1968, in Mexico City, Mexico. These were the first Ol ...

Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...

and John Sherwood, who won a bronze medal in the 400m hurdles, and at the same Olympics.

Career

In 1997 he won the

Australian Open The Australian Open (stylized ΛO) is a tennis tournament organised by Tennis Australia annually at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victoria, Australia. It is chronologically the first of the four Grand Slam (tennis), Grand Sl ...

boys' doubles title with fellow Brit James Trotman. They defeated South African pairing Jaco van der Westhuizen and Wesley Whitehouse 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. The organization believes tennis can provide ...

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 Mark Rodney James Petchey (born 1 August 1970) is a former tennis player from England, who turned professional in 1988. He now works as a tennis commentator and analyst for Amazon Prime, ITV Network, ITV, the BBC, the Tennis Channel, Tennis Aus ...

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 in the first round before losing to

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

. 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

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Sherwood, David English male tennis players British male tennis players Tennis players from Sheffield Living people 1980 births Australian Open (tennis) junior champions Grand Slam (tennis) champions in boys' doubles 21st-century English sportsmen