New coach puts youths through their paces at Darling Tennis Center

High lobs, high hopes and high performance at the Darling Tennis Center are getting a boost with the expertise of a new coach.

The center, 7901 W. Washington Ave., recently hired Henner Nehles as the high-performance coach for the youth program.

"These kids have to prove themselves before he'll coach them," said Sandy Foley, facility manager at the center. "They have to be committed."

Nehles hails from Germany, where Las Vegas is not exactly viewed as the place for those with tennis aspirations. He came to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas to study hotel management and ended up earning bachelor's and master's degrees with that focus. But he was there on a tennis scholarship that led to him working as the director of tennis at the former Las Vegas Hilton, then assistant tennis coach at UNLV. He met his wife, Elena Gantcheva, who is also a tennis player, through the program, and they now have a daughter, Giselle, who is about 7 months old.

As a high-performance coach, he coaches about 40 to 50 people a week and is responsible for three groups: Futures 10-and-under group, the Challengers 10-13 and Masters 14-18. Nehles said he does not prefer one age group over another but rather bases his focus on the passion of the player and his potential.

"What I'm really excited about is Sam Querrey, who manages Darling, a former top 20 player in the world, together with the Foleys, they have a tennis background," Nehles said. "You have people involved (here) who are passionate about tennis.

"I just think that there is very good potential in the tennis market, a high potential to grow and develop some top juniors. I also joined because of the quality of coaching. It's really high, and I don't know of another program that can compete with it right now.

"Down the road, the hard work they've done over the last few years will really pay off. They do a lot of the quick-step program, which is also supported by the USTA (United States Tennis Association), and down the road, this place is really going to start developing up to near national rank."

Nehles knows a thing or two about being nationally ranked. While playing tennis for UNLV, he was ranked as high as No. 37 nationally in singles and No. 17 in doubles. Throughout his career as a Rebel, Nehles became UNLV's most decorated tennis player, receiving numerous awards, including Mountain West Region Most Valuable Student Athlete of the Year and National Intercollegiate Tennis Association Mountain Region Senior Athlete of the Year.

In 2006, he took charge of the high-performance junior academy at the Las Vegas Hilton, which trained more than 30 top-ranked national and sectional players.

He coached, mentored and developed the Mountain West Conference's most successful women's tennis player of all time, Gantcheva. She became an All-American, and her highest NCAA Division I ranking was No. 8 in singles and No. 5 in doubles. Under Nehles's direction, Gantcheva defeated Jill Craybas at the Las Vegas Tennis Channel Open in March 2006.

Three things that are imperative to being an effective coach? The respect of the player, to have authority and show the kids that you love it just as much as they do, he said.

The children love tennis so much, they stay on site for the practical side of life. Darling has an academy where the would-be tennis stars undergo a home-school program, complete with an instructor from UNLV.

"It's not like the typical home school, where the student is unsupervised," Foley said. "The academy students have structure and a tutor who proctors their tests and assists them with their course work. These students are highly motivated individuals that learn life lessons both on the tennis court as well as in the classroom. They learn to manage their schedules for school as well as time on the tennis court practicing, as many of them travel several weeks out of each month to tournaments."

As for Nehles' start date of April 2, Foley added that the job opening wasn't even advertised.

"It worked out, timing wise, you know how some things kind of fall in your lap?" Foley said. "We interviewed one other gentleman who lives in Arizona. He heard we may be looking, then Henner called and we were like, 'Wow, this is awesome.'

"He's fitting right in with the staff, and the kids love him. I think he's strict, but he has a very good rapport with the kids. He has an easy demeanor to him and (we've) ... had a couple people from out of town call and ask how to get into the program."

How does Nehles rate the tennis program at Darling?

"It's very well-organized and structured," he said. "It's a USTA regional training center, so they're working hand in hand with the headquarters in Carson (Calif.), which is the national training center. It says the instruction you're going to receive here at the Darling Tennis Center is exactly what it's supposed to be."

The only way he'd put his mark on the youngsters' tennis program, he said, would be a little more modernizing of the technique. He said that overall, tennis has been taught in a very specific way over the generations but that today tennis is getting faster, and the opponents are getting stronger, taller and more athletic.

"So the technique has to adjust to be more efficient," he said.

Why does he like Darling?

"It's in Nevada, and everybody who comes here ... we just had a person from New York that I gave a private (lesson) and he used to play at Flushing Meadow, and he said, 'This is probably the nicest facility I've ever seen,' " Nehles said. "I think we have the best program in town for sure."

Contact Summerlin/Summerlin South View reporter Jan Hogan at jhogan@viewnews.com or 387-2949.