Pupils’ rings of coins
Faye Burton with Gold medal winner Andy Murray
A HORNCASTLE tennis coach won’t forget her Olympic experience in a hurry.
Faye Button, 21, rubbed shoulders with some of the world’s top-ranked stars during the Olympic tournament held at Wimbledon, including gold medal winner Andy Murray.
Faye, a sports rehabilitation graduate at Hull University, said: “I just wanted to get involved in the Olympics.
“It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
“I really wanted to be a part of the tennis side of things, and luckily, because I’m a tennis coach, I was fast-tracked through the interview process.”
She was given the opportunity to meet some of the competitors while working in London.
As well as Murray, she met fourth-placed world number 2 Novak Djokovic, who finished fourth, ex-women’s world number 1 Jelena Jankovic, and American John Isner. Isner is most famous for having played in the longest ever professional tennis match - 11 hours and five minutes at Wimbledon in 2010.
Faye admitted: “I wasn’t originally a big fan of Murray. But he was great to meet, he was really nice to all the fans.
“My opinion of him changed after he reached the Wimbledon final earlier this year, and then the gold medal at the Olympics.”
Faye coaches at Horncastle and Louth Tennis clubs and has already started to see the impact of the Olympic games.
“We’ve had a lot of new sign-ups for the five to eight-year-old class,” she said.
“Parents are bringing them down and we’re getting them involved in the sport.”
After first picking up a racket at the age of five, Faye went on to play tennis for school, college and even university.
“I was captain of the tennis team at Hull University in my second year.
“We won promotion to the league above which was a great achievement.”
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Weather for Horncastle
Wednesday 22 May 2013
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 4 C to 15 C
Wind Speed: 22 mph
Wind direction: North west
Tomorrow
Light showers
Temperature: 4 C to 10 C
Wind Speed: 21 mph
Wind direction: North west
