20 January 2023 | Tennis Victoria

Luke is a Tennis Australia Club Professional, a coach developer for Tennis Australia’s Victorian and Tasmanian coaching courses and the 2018 TCAV ‘rising star’ – most outstanding 30 & under Victorian tennis coach.  

After playing tennis as a junior and coaching junior tennis on the side, Luke joined the Army for five years. Moving to Scotland straight after, he admits that he didn’t have much time to pick up the tennis racquet for a long stint. 

Moving to Melbourne in 2012, Luke started coaching at Fitzroy Tennis Club whilst studying at University. Luke re-found his love for the game and started coaching more and more hours until it became a full-time gig. He went through the coaching course pathway through Tennis Australia and eventually was able to start his own business Racquet Lab based at Fitzroy Tennis Club Mayors Park Tennis Centre in Clifton Hill.  

Luke is bringing his team of coaches and kids as part of the ‘Kids on Court’ program at the Australian Open. Kids on Court has been something Luke’s players have been a part of for a few years and looks forward to it every year. 

“We know that everyone that gets the opportunity to do that becomes a tennis fan for life once they step on the blue courts at Melbourne Park. We often find that some of the parent’s that come along catch the bug and all of the sudden we go from a five-year-old doing lessons to the whole family down on the weekend which is great.” 

Luke believes that the impact of the Australian Open on the Victorian community is like no other. 

 “I don’t know of any other sport that has such a quick and fast effect like the Australian Open does on players in Victoria.” 

At Racquet Lab, Luke and his team aim to bring about a fun and inclusive high-performance environment for all players.  

Luke says that the way he looks at being a coach is that “being the scratchy stuff on a box of matches; it helps other matches light up.”  

His favourite part of coaching is seeing the growth in kids as people.  

“Seeing athletic ability and tennis skills develop is great but watching them become well rounded people and seeing the impact and being a mentor and personality in their life is really rewarding.” 

At Racquet Lab, they have been doing Cardio Tennis for a number of years. Cardio Tennis is a tennis workout program that caters to all fitness and skill level. The session brings about a variety of cardio workout and tennis drills to a high energy sound track.  

 “It’s so good to be able to get on court with people that have such a diverse range of skills in the sport and still give them a challenging and rewarding time on court together. Sometimes it is the people that would never face off on the other side of the net competitively and they can get out what they put in in that session.” 

Luke brought his participants to Day Four of the AO to be part of the Cardio on Court Showcase on Showcourt 3.

Luke believes that the demographic in the area really suits the style of program and they tend to see lots of good connections being made around the club on and off the court.   

“A lot of people use it as a bit of a sample of tennis to see where they fit in the ability landscape and a lot of people then go into more competition, tactical and technical focused lessons. We also have people that do that that and do private lessons and use cardio tennis as a bit of their fitness. There’s not really one major user group at Fitzroy and Clifton.” 

Luke Devlin and the team at Racquet Lab offer Cardio Tennis as well as a variety of lessons including Hot Shots programs and beginner/intermediate/advanced squads.