WHERE & WHEN
SWITZERLAND 1979-1998
Raphael was born on January 10, 1979 in Lausanne, Switzerland. A sports fanatic at a very young age, Raphael chose tennis over soccer at the age of 13. Ranked # 2 in the country in the 14 & under age group, Raphael won the Winter Cup (European Team Championships) for Switzerland alongside Michel Kratochvil (former top 50 ATP player). In 1993, he entered the National Training Center in Ecublens, Lausanne, where he started working with famous French Coach and French Davis Cup Captain, George Deniau, as well as Pierre Paganini, current Physical Trainer for Roger Federer. Raphael trained there for 2 years with the best players in Switzerland, including Marc Rosset and Roger Federer. He travelled with Swiss players such as Michel Kratochvil, Martina Hingis, and Patty Schnyder. During his junior career, Raphael won 8 medals in National Championships, including 3 gold and had wins over many current professional players including Juan-Carlos Ferrero. He also participated in some big international events such as the Orange Bowl.
usa, FLORIDA 1998-2002
FLAGLER college in saint augustin
In 1998, Raphael was offered a tennis scholarship at Flagler College (NAIA) in Florida where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Sport Management with minors in Business Administration and Spanish. During these four years at the school, the tennis team never finished the season below 7th in the nation and Raphael was named All-American twice, ending his sophomore year ranked #2 in the nation in doubles.
“It was one of the happiest periods of my life. I met there so many special people from all around the world. Studying in the US gives you this chance to get your education in an international environment, which is unique.”
USA, SOUTH CAROLINA 2002-2003
HILTON HEAD ISLAND
“For my last semester in College, I had to choose a work place to do an apprenticeship, which led me to go to the Van Deer Meer Tennis Academy in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. A state just North of Florida, South Carolina made sense and Hilton Head Island happens to be a beautiful place, home of the Van Der Meer Academy. Dennis Van Der Meer was actually known as being the man who had taught the most people how to play the game of tennis…He is a legend in the sport and I was fortunate to spend a year learning from him (the academy hired me to work there after the apprenticeship). This was my first ever job after university and I couldn’t think of a better way to have started my coaching career.”
USA, KANSAS, 2003-2004
BLUE HILLS AND HALLBROOK COUNTRY CLUBS, KANSAS CITY
“During my time in South Carolina, I came to know of an opportunity to run a junior programme in a country club in Kansas City. This was a great opportunity for me to run my own programme and I took it without much hesitation, even though the location wasn’t the best. I spent almost 2 years in Kansas City, where I had the pleasure to work as a the director of the junior programme for both the Blue Hills and the Hallbrook tennis club. I met amazing people during these couple years and the memories will stay with me forever. Kansas City is actually a great sports city. When I left for Europe at the end of 2004, the goodbye I received from all the kids was totally overwhelming.”
One of the reasons I left the United States, apart from missing Europe, was that I suffered a back injury while coaching. This pushed me to go back to studies and I signed up for a master in Sports Psychology, which started in January of 2005. I spent the first part of the year in Barcelona studying and getting my post grade in Sports Psychology.
HONG KONG, CHINA 2005-2008
“In Hong Kong, I started working as a coach for the federation, responsible for what was called at the time the Talent Group (TG), working mostly with 12 & under kids. After about 3 months there, there was a reshuffling of all the coaches working for the federation and I ended up coaching the 3 best girls (2 of them from mainland China), all ranked in the top 150 ITF Juniors. This was an amazing experience, which led me to visit many countries in Asia, a continent that I did not know about before that, as well as coaching at all the junior grand slams, including the Australian Open in January of 2006 (see pic). After 18 months working with the girls, they moved to the Elite programmes (Davis Cup and Fed Cup players), so I left the federation and opened my own international tennis academy with the former Head Coach of the federation, Benny Lin. We called it the Hong Kong International Tennis Academy (HKITA)”.
portugal, 2009-2010
“The experiences I lived in Asia where amazing, but I always wanted to go back to Europe at some point, also because I was too far away from my family and friends, so I designed a business plan to open an international tennis academy in Portugal. I believed Portugal was the perfect place because of the climate and the fact that nothing was done there in terms of international tennis programmes and programmes for kids who want to become elite players. There were tennis programmes but nothing at this level, so I thought it could be an interesting project.”
“My ambition was to set up a tennis academy training professional tennis players according to my idea of ‘The Complete Player”, consisting of technical base, tactical understanding, physical training and mental training. In addition, I saw Portugal as the perfect setting for tennis holidays for players wishing to make quick progress while enjoying some time-off in this beautiful place.”
SPAIN 2010 - NOW
In 2010 Raphael moved to Spain and founded there the Barcelona Tennis Academy. Originally, it was based in the small tennis club of Vallpineda, a picturesque town next to Sitges. In 2015 the academy shifted to a new location - the beautiful, seaside town of Castelldefels, a 20-minute drive from Barcelona, 10 minutes away from the airport and a 5-minute walk to the beach.
The main idea behind Raphael’s academy has been to create for players a home-like setting, a family-like environment where they can feel emotionally secure and well taken care of. The academy is small - during trainings, there is usually 2 players with a coach on the court. For Raphael close relationships between coaches, players and parents are an essential condition so that players can consistently develop and reach their optimal potential.
As a consequence, the coaching approach at the academy is very individualised; every player is treated in a personalised way and receives personal attention. All the coaches have time and space to get to know the players well, build relationships with them and take care of every aspect of their game, such as techniques, tactics, fitness and psychology.
camps and clinics
Some of the greatest memories we share as an academy come from our experiences of travelling and running camps and clinics all over the world. Camps & clinics are unique as it is one of these rare occasions for the team to coach outside of our Spanish facility and to travel around the world to run trainings with players at their own clubs and academies. This enables us to build friendships, get to know different cultures and thus personalise our training methods even more.
The 2010 Stockholm clinics were the start of a 10-year relationship with the Team Stockholm. In 2015 our team travelled around India with tennis and fitness camps. In 2017 together with Sixto, one of the tennis coaches at our academy, Raphael ran a camp along with a coaching clinic at the Winners Tennis Academy in Cairo, where our BTA team will be running another camp in January 2020. In the spring of 2017 for the first time Raphael visited Scotland, where he ran a week-end of clinics for juniors and adults of the Aboyne Tennis Club, about 30 miles from Aberdeen. The players and coaches have already been to our academy twice. We have unforgettable memories from these trips and we value all these tennis friendships very much. Looking forward to continuing these relationships for the years to come!
