Doug Grant Tennis Profile
Doug started in tennis as a young umpire at the Australian Open, a tradition in his family.
After meeting Frank Sedgman at a tennis camp, Doug was invited to be part of Frank’s Tennis Camps of Australia on the Gold Coast working the video camera. Tennis Camps of Australia were also involved in the running and promoting of the Australian Open at that time. Doug also became a regular photographer for Australian Tennis Magazine.
Following this, Doug helped out with the Davis Cup semi-final team against Czechoslovakia of Fraser, Laver, Newcombe, Rosewall and Anderson as team gofer.
Doug was stringing racquets not long after he started hitting. He started a company called Victorian Racquet Stringing Co. which strung racquets for major sports stores and racquet companies such as Prince, Wilson, Yonex, Spalding and Donnay. Doug then followed up with a retail outlet called Racquets Plus which for many years looked after players racquets during the Australian Open.
During the eighties, Doug traveled to every grand slam venue, past and present. Doug coached in England, France and America. Returning to Australia, Doug was coaching up to sixty hours a week himself and head coach at eight tennis & racquet clubs as well as private tennis courts. Doug has been involved in teaching tennis, real tennis and squash.
While Doug was coaching on synthetic grass, he noticed problems developing with the new surface and started developing machines and methods to counter this starting a company called Courtcare.
Doug is also heavily involved in the original game of tennis commonly known as royal or real tennis. A club director and on the Australian Council for eleven years, Doug looks after the Australian real tennis website. Doug introduced to the game and advises world number two and world doubles champion Steve Virgona. Doug also coached Steve to U14 Australian number two in lawn tennis.
Doug currently runs a tennis services company called Courtcare which services hundreds of privately owned and club tennis courts. Doug looks after their coaching, restrings, court equipment and the condition of the court.
Doug Grant
