TOTALLY Tennis director Nigel Long was one of the main speakers at the annual Scottish National Tennis Coaches' conference held in Edinburgh.

Long, who is a performance coach and Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) coach education tutor, was asked to address the conference after his success at both the Welsh national and LTA club coaches conferences, held in Cardiff and Bournemouth respectively.

The national conferences give coaches from some remote areas the opportunity to come together for a weekend of education and development at a central venue.

Following the success of Totally Tennis' schools programme in Hampshire and Berkshire, Long spoke to a session of more than 60 people on "coaching in primary schools".

He then addressed a second session of more than 50 coaches on "drills for club players".

Long was in good company, joining fellow speakers Judy Murray, a Scottish national coach, and Carl Maes, Great Britain's under-14 performance manager and former coach to top women's star Kim Clijsters for six years.

Murray, given the LTA coach of the year award in 2003, spoke on "developing potential to achieve excellence".

She has more than 10 years' experience in the development of world-class players and, through her hard work and dedication, Scotland had three players in the world junior top 25 during 2003.

She has also played a key role in the development of her son Andrew, who won the US Open junior title in September and represents Great Britain as a member of the Davis Cup team.

Flemish coach Maes, who says his most memorable coaching experience was coaching Clijsters when she played Jennifer Capriati in the 2001 French Open final, delivered his two sessions on the "syllabus for delivery of a 12-week coaching programme for clubs and academies".

Before he became GB under-14 performance manager, he worked for the Flemish Tennis Federation (VTV) as the national coach responsible for the under-14 tennis and conditioning programme.

Among his charges then were Clijsters and other world-class Flemish players in Henin, Malisse, Vliegen and Wauters.

Long said of his experience: "The annual conferences give coaches an up-to-date insight into the developments at the LTA, combined with on-court demonstrations and training.

"Giving coaches information is extremely important, especially in an area as vast and sometimes remote as Scotland.

"There are only 127 coaches in the whole of Scotland, which is low compared with the rest of the country. Only six of those are performance coaches.

"I was amazed just how far some of the coaches had to travel across Scotland to come to this event. One had to travel for six hours."