Get to Know - Marc Sophoulis

Marc has been a full time tennis coach since 2001, but began his coaching journey in 1996, working alongside his former coach and mentor, Michael Baroch. He joined a coaching environment that was world class as Michael had coached several of the world's best players, including Mark Philippoussis and Maria Sharapova, which guided him in the right direction in his coaching pathway.

Coaching on both the ATP and WTA tours for several years, Marc is now the head coach at the Melbourne International Tennis School (MITS) in Melbourne, working with many high performing junior and senior players. He also is the head coach of the Maribyrnong Sports Academy, Australia’s Most Outstanding Tennis School 2012 and multiple time nationals schools champions.

Marc has written and conducted coach development courses all over the world including China, Japan, Singpore, Hong Kong & Vietnam and also lead facilitates Tennis Australia's coaching courses for over 15 years. Coach education is one of Marc's passions and his driving force for sharing his knowledge through The Tennis Menu.

Marc has coached high level athletes including: Australian Open Junior Quarter Finalists Olivia Hauger and Lulu Sun, WTA players Anastasia Rodionova (top 8 in the world in doubles in 2014), Arina Rodionova (Australian Olympian and Fed Cup Representative), Victor Hanescu  (former world number 26 and French Open Quarter Finalist) and have been part of the Bryan Brothers Australian Open campaigns between 2013-2019. Marc also worked with Indian/Hong Kong Davis Cup player Karan Rastogi and Aussie Dane Propoggia, whilst spending time as a hitting partner to many players at the Australian Open including Simona Halep, Sabine Lisicki and Anastasia Pivovarova just to name a few.

In 2007 he joined the Richmond Football club and assisted in the player development section of the Football Department alongside Craig McRae and Jade Rawlings, learning the craft of skill acquisition, developing young talent and structuring development programs. This followed with a role as an assistant coach in 2014 and 2015 in the Richmond VFL team under Head Coach Tim Clarke. His roles included: Midfield Coach, Backline Coach and Director of Coaching. Currently he is the Coaching Coordinator and assistant coach in the VFL program which won the 2019 VFL Premiership.

Running the Melbourne International Tennis School and Maribyrnong College Tennis programs has been his full time role for over 15 years. In 2011, he was named Victorian Rising Star Coach of the year and was named in the top 3 Talent Development Coaches in Australia in 2013 and 2014, developing some of Australia’s most highly talented junior athletes. In 2012, Maribyrnong College was named Most Outstanding Tennis School from Tennis Australia and in 2013 won the National Secondary School Championships. Maribyrnong has since gone on to win 4 National titles. 

The Tennis Menu is a collation of all philosophies that he has learnt over 20 years of coaching 2 sports at the highest level, as well as educating coaches all over the world. In 2019, Marc was employed to design and implement a nation-wide Australian doubles workshop and used his knowledge to help guide Romania's Nicholas David Ionel to win the 2020 Australian Open Boys doubles.

Learn from Marc's extensive coaching career by signing up to The Tennis Menu

Connect with Marc:

Email: [email protected]

Website: http://marcsophoulis.com/