Ball-girl, bottom left corner, last two seconds.
Harmless really.
what was the issue there?
Acne ridden Spaniard lording it here in the QF.
Semi final against Novak should be good
Mark Tighe
Today at 05:30
The annual general meeting of Tramore Tennis Club in March was a seismic event in the Waterford seaside town. Friendships were sundered and lawyers have been retained as a result of the chaotic meeting. However, it has only just emerged that a coach central to the divide has a criminal conviction for theft from an Australian tennis club.
At the heart of the AGM split were differing stances on the departure of Jeremy Coyle, a part-time administrator at the club since 2019. Coyle is the partner of Mark Emmet White, one of four professional coaches in Tramore. “Mark and Jeremy” were a popular couple with many members.
White joined in early 2015, boasting of qualifications from Tennis Australia, and earned a “cult-like following”, especially from many female players who enjoyed his cardio tennis workouts. When he turned 30 during the lockdown in 2020, the club published a video in which 28 members pretended to hit balls to each other from their back gardens while wishing White a happy birthday.
Together with Coyle, who styled himself “the Wine Guy” for wine-tasting sessions in Tramore, the couple set up a Tennis and Wine Tour that attracted many club members. Last year there were two trips to La Manga Club in Spain. White gave lessons on the club’s clay courts while Coyle organised tasting tours in vineyards.
“They were just great fun,” said one of the women who toured with them last May.
However, not everyone in the club was enamoured. Despite joining in 2015, White had offered repeated excuses when asked to provide details of his Australian qualifications. He blamed a poor relationship with his former club for delaying the process.
As with most clubs, there were tensions in Tramore over allocation of court time among coaches. Coyle was working with two administrators who had been with the club longer than him and they made complaints about the quality of his work and alleged he failed to follow a required protocol.
Coyle left his job last year. His solicitor, Sean Ormonde, secured a €10,000 settlement for his client from the club and a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) was signed.
Club sources say there was much anger among members who believed the club’s ruling committee had mistreated Coyle. There were rumours he was targeted because of his relationship with White.
A member of the club said its management committee was bound by the NDA, which had been sought by Coyle’s solicitor. In the absence of facts, rumours grew.
Ahead of the AGM on March 13, draft motions were circulated around Tramore that implied the serving tennis club committee had mishandled the situation. The motions implied the staff members had made “false accusations” against Coyle.
Those supporting the two staff members and the committee were astounded that friends and neighbours had signed up to support these critical motions. A club source supportive of White and Coyle said there was a belief that “there had been an injustice done to Jeremy” and frustration over the lack of answers from the club’s committee.
A motion passed at the AGM called for the committee to provide a “full and complete” explanation of the handling of the complaint.
The accompanying rationale for the motion said “we are alarmed at rumours circulating in the community” that related to the “unprecedented” resignation of committee members and the loss of a staff member and a coach. The motion said the rumours reflected badly on the people involved and the standing of the club in the wider community.
The motion said its proposers understood an NDA had been signed and a large payment made. It asked why this was necessary. Was it to protect the club or “protect the actions of people who mishandled this false accusation”?
An alternative motion sought a no-confidence vote on the committee over its handing of the issue for bringing the club “into disrepute”.
Those members who believed the club had acted correctly in dealing with Coyle’s departure were disgusted at the suggestions they had behaved wrongly. They believed their opponents were blinded by their loyalty to “Mark and Jeremy”.
White had already told members he intended to step away from the club to set up Padel Tennis Ireland, a new venture to be based in Cork. Louise Grubb, Waterford’s current Businesswoman of the Year, became a director of White’s new company last December, but resigned in March. Grubb was among the club members on the couple’s La Manga Tennis and Wine Tour last year.
A source close to Grubb, the chief executive of veterinary health company Triumvet, said it was always her intention to be a short-term director of White’s company as she only agreed to join to “help them get set up”.
At the AGM, one supporter of the couple proposed that “Mark and Jeremy” be given honorary life membership, but the motion was ruled out of order. The departing treasurer revealed that an unauthorised €1,000 transfer had been made from the club’s accounts. A club member stood up, to some applause, to insist the €1,000 was an authorised “bonus” paid to Coyle for his hard work.
The majority of the club’s ruling committee were replaced with new members, some of whom had supported the motion that implied criticism of the club’s handling of Coyle’s departure.
The two remaining administrative staff both resigned, with club members close to them saying they had no choice.
“They felt their positions were untenable,” one member said. “The existing committee couldn’t give facts because of the NDA. The rumours and the madness of crowds took over. I’d never seen anything like it.”
In the aftermath of the AGM, the club has received complaints and legal correspondence from members who claim they were defamed or victimised by accusations made before and during the AGM. At least one member has received a legal letter back from Ormonde Solicitors, signed by Seán Ormonde, the same solicitor used by Coyle when he settled with the club. The letter denies any defamation or victimisation by the club and warns that a club member cannot sue oneself by taking a legal action against their own club. The letter states the club will seek costs against the member if they sue.
Asked about the apparent conflict of interests in employing White and Coyle’s solicitor, the club’s new committee did not respond. Seán Ormonde said he acts for both White and Coyle, “but not for Tramore”.
“My colleague Neil Breheny does, but he may be conflicted now,” he said by text. He did not respond to a question asking why his signature appeared on a letter written on behalf of the club.
Sources say long-time friends and neighbours in Tramore are no longer on speaking terms because of the rancour caused by the AGM.
The fallout reached Australia in March and the Elsternwick Park Tennis Centre (EPTC) in Melbourne, where White worked for three years in his early 20s. Christine Owen, the EPTC manager and owner, had emailed Tramore Tennis Club in 2017, but no action was taken.
“He ran our centre for around three years, and while he was there we just loved him and I treated him like a son,” Owen wrote about White. “He [had] no family here and I felt he needed a mother figure as he was only in his early 20s and was a long way from home. We trusted Mark in managing the centre. It was the biggest mistake of my life.”
Owen accused White of stealing from her club and manipulating books to hide this. She said that despite a conviction and an order to repay AUS$17,000 (€10,500), White failed to repay one cent.
The Magistrates Court of Victoria confirmed to the Sunday Independent that on January 30, 2015, White was convicted of theft. He was fined $1,500, ordered to pay $75.50 costs and $16,961 in compensation to EPTC.
Prompted by contacts from Tramore, the EPTC contacted Tennis Australia to alert it to a 2015 post on Tramore Tennis Club’s Facebook page, where it was claimed White had two Tennis Australia coaching qualifications. This led Tom Larner, chief tennis officer of Tennis Australia, to write on March 31 to Kevin Quinn, the recently appointed CEO of Tennis Ireland.
Larner said White “does not hold, and has never held, recognised Tennis Australia coach qualifications”. He said Tennis Australia did not endorse White in any way, and understood he was gaining financial advantage “on the basis of these false claims”. He said there were “broader concerns about his conduct”.
Tramore Tennis Club has since deleted the March 26, 2015 Facebook post that claimed White had Tennis Australia qualifications.
Tennis Ireland CEO Kevin Quinn told the Sunday Independent Larner’s email prompted investigations. Quinn said Tennis Ireland established that White holds a Tennis Ireland Coach Level 1 qualification since September 20, 2021 and is currently sitting his Level 2 course. The Tennis Ireland CEO said White was first engaged by Tennis Ireland in October 2021 to help coach its East Junior emerging talent squad and has held Garda vetting clearance since 2015.
He said an email received by Tennis Ireland on May 22 stated that White had a conviction for theft and this prompted an investigation that is “ongoing”.
“Mr White has been suspended on full pay pending the outcome of our investigation,” he said.
A statement from Ormonde Solicitors on White’s behalf said: “Mark has always held the appropriate qualifications for the roles he occupied in Ireland. He never misled anyone in relation to these. In any case, these and the matters relating to his garda vetting are the subject of an employment investigation process and it is not appropriate to comment on them at this time.”
The statement said White acknowledged that he accepted a January 31, 2015 conviction for theft in Moorabbin Magistrate’s Court.
“Mark, however, denies that he stole money from his former employer, and it is his position that he maintained his innocence to this charge for two years and accepted a conviction solely to secure the return of his passport in order to facilitate his return home to his family,” it said.
“At the time, he was grappling with severe health issues and found himself alone in a foreign country, far away from his family and any support network.”
The statement did not clarify if White declared his conviction during his garda vetting. It claimed there were “homophobic undertones” to suggestions from Australia that White was responsible for misappropriation of other monies.
Ormonde Solicitors confirmed it represented Coyle in his employment dispute with the club.
“The resolution of that dispute was the subject of a confidentiality agreement,” it said. “We are deeply concerned that this agreement appears to have been breached, and we will be contacting Jeremy’s former employer to ascertain how this breach occurred.”
Members of Tramore Tennis Club received an update from the new committee on May 1 that complained about “unwanted urgent requests from Tennis Ireland over the past two weeks” that required almost daily committee meetings over the past 10 days.
The update said a complaint made to Tennis Ireland led to “a huge consumption of people’s personal time and resulted in the suspension of coaching at the club for a week”. The notice said the club had since “received confirmation that all our coaches’ qualifications are in order”. It allowed coaching to resume on May 1.
This weekend, the club’s committee said it was a group of volunteers doing its best to deal with issues since the AGM.
The statement said the committee could not comment on issues under investigation. It said the minutes of the AGM would show motions proposed were not critical of the previous committee or staff who have since quit.
It called the Tennis Ireland enquiries “unwanted” because it said Tennis Ireland had already deemed that its coaches’ garda vetting and qualifications were “in order”. It said the club is cooperating fully with the Tennis Ireland investigation.
On Friday, the committee issued an “urgent” notice to members claiming there had been a “serious data breach” by someone providing the names and phone numbers of club members to this newspaper for this article. The notice said both gardaí and the Data Protection Commission would be notified and the “club will cooperate fully with any investigations”.
Sounds like the husbands got miffed at their wives being wined and dined by a couple of gay lads
3 Likes
That’s the long and the short of it. A few women were getting bulled on the side.
They might have been pretend gay lads.
Arent they all?
Djokovic gave Alcaraz the runaround there in that 1st set.
Alcaraz has injured his calf here.
Djokovic has broken Alcaraz physically. Alcaraz has to concede the game to Djokovic.
Alcaraz has to concede a break to get a medical timeout there.
Djokovic should be decent and give it back.
Not Djokovic’s fault if Alcaraz can’t handle the pressure.
Terrible rule.
Pressure?
This match is over now. Alcaraz can’t move.
I wouldn’t be so sure. He’s probably lost this set anyway but I find it unusual 2 sets would have a grand slam champion cramping unless there’s some underlying issue.
Just before I went out at end of second set, Djokovic was complaining about an elbow injury. Presumably he made another of his miraculous recoveries from that.