Simon McFarland
Simon has a degree in Sports from the University of Lancaster and is a Tennis Ireland Level 3 Coach (ITF Level 2 Advanced). He has been coaching tennis since 2004 and has been Director of Tennis at Windsor Lawn Tennis Club in Belfast since 2009, coaching Blind and Visually Impaired tennis since 2016. He was Head of Technical for the IBTA Executive Committee from 2018-2020 and produced the latest Technical Manual that was presented at the 2019 World Championships in Alicante, Spain. He is heavily involved in Blind and VI tennis in his home nation of Ireland where he has won awards such as Tennis Ireland Coach of the year in 2017 and Belfast Disability Coach of the year in 2019. He was also appointed as the Ireland Head Coach for the 2019 World Championships. Within his new role as Head of PR and Marketing, Simon wants to continue working with those countries that are close to being able to join IBTA and working with the International Tennis Federation in helping Blind Tennis being recognised worldwide. In recent years he was highly influential at beginning Blind and VI tennis in India by travelling to Delhi in 2018 and Mumbai in 2019 which led them to joining IBTA in 2019 along with guiding Colombia to join in 2020. His passion is in coaching B1 tennis and coming up with innovative and new techniques as well as developing the sport amongst the developing countries and those that have not yet started Blind tennis.