Uxbridge’s Stuart Wilkinson, the Lead Programme Coach on the Tennis Foundation’s Wheelchair Tennis Performance Programme, is among nine high performance coaches chosen this week to be part of the second intake of UK Sport’s Elite Programme.

The nine coaches have been chosen due to their proven ability to deliver success at the highest level within the British high performance system, and will benefit from a ground-breaking three-year development programme, with an investment of approximately £20,000 per coach, per year.

The Elite Programme will allow unparalleled access to world leading expertise, technology and experiences, while delivery of the programme will be highly bespoke, designed to meet the needs of every individual coach and sport.

Wilkinson has been coaching wheelchair tennis for 15 years, having started by coaching mixed ability groups in West London. He went on to become individual coach to former British men’s No. 1 Jayant Mistry for a four-year period that included Mistry’s Wimbledon doubles title in 2005 and also put together a squad of players and a coaching programme at Tripletts Community Tennis Centre in Hayes, Middlesex, where he worked from 2008-2010.

He has been individual coach to several of Britain’s leading wheelchair tennis players including two-time Paralympic quad singles gold medallist Peter Norfolk, Eastcote’s Andy Lapthorne and Ickenham;’s Marc McCarroll. In recent years he has also been Captain of Great Britain’s quad wheelchair tennis team that has won multiple medals at the World Team Cup.

Lapthorne partnered Norfolk to win the quad doubles silver medal at London 2012 and together they won two Australian Open quad doubles titles under Wilkinson’s guidance. Lapthorne added a third Australian Open doubles title in January this year, when Ickenham’s Jordanne Whiley also won her first Grand Slam doubles title.

“I am very honoured to have been chosen for UK Sport’s Elite Programme,” said Wilkinson, who was appointed National Programme Coach for the Tennis Foundation’s Wheelchair Tennis Performance Programme in 2010 before becoming Lead Programme Coach. In 2013 he was nominated for the Disability Coach of the Year Award in the UK Coaching Awards.

“It is a very exciting opportunity to share in and benefit from best practice in the high performance coaching community and I look forward to using the knowledge and experience I gain to inspire even greater success among the players on the Tennis Foundation’s Wheelchair Tennis Performance Programme as we work towards Rio 2016 and future Games.”

Simon Timson, Director of Performance at UK Sport, said: "Supporting and challenging our best coaches to become world leading is one the core pillars to achieving our goal of enabling more athletes to win more medals in Rio 2016 and beyond. The Elite Programme provides tailored opportunities for our best coaches to develop personally and technically so they can contribute even more to the development of a stronger, more sustainable high performance system. "

The coaches selected from non-Olympic and Paralympic sports are being supported to do so by their own National Governing Body and have been selected due to their commitment to their own professional development and the expertise they can bring to benefit the Elite Programme cohort.