Wolverhampton's Henry Searle looking to a bright future after Wimbledon win

The 17-year-old from Wolverhampton became the first British boy to win the singles tournament in SW19 since 1962 as a 6-4 6-4 win over Yaroslav Demin saw him emulate Stanley Matthews, son of the famous footballer.

And with many new avenues opened to him following his life-changing triumph on Court One on Sunday, Searle hopes to speed up his move into the senior game.

“I think there’s the jump to the men’s game that needs to be done a little bit quicker. Hopefully that can happen now,” he said. “I’ll try to continue to work hard to try and be playing at that sort of level in the men’s, as well, in the future.

“The plan is to still do my A-Levels. How easy that will be I don’t know with all the travelling. I struggled enough as it is this year with travelling. At the end of long days it’s not ideal to try and sit down in front of a book.

“But I’ll see what happens. If the tennis is going well enough, I might not have to do them.”

Searle is Britain’s first junior champion since Laura Robson won the girls’ event in 2008 and he showed the temperament and ability he will need to succeed in the men’s game after a brilliant campaign where he did not drop a set, highlighted by him sending down a 134mph serve during the final.

His ability to serve at a speed that would thrive on the men’s tour comes down to a finely tuned technique and a growth spurt.

Coach Morgan Phillips said: “A lot of that serve comes from his technique and long arms, but a bit of extra firepower is going to put a few more miles per hour on that serve.

“He’s filling out now, definitely. He’s all been arms and legs and that growth spurt threw off his co-ordination as it does.

“But I think he’s getting closer to stopping. And the legs are really starting to develop now, which is super important in tennis. It’s day in, day out for him. It’s no coincidence what’s going on right now. He’s working consistently hard and well.”

Searle is now up to number six in the boys’ world rankings – not bad for someone who decided to skip the Australian Open in January rather than go through qualification because his ranking wasn’t high enough.

Phillips said: “He could’ve played qualies but we looked at the schedule and thought there would be more benefit in preparing him to go to South America and do a really good physical training block as well.

“We were looking bigger picture all the time with him. At the moment it’s working and we’ve got to keep working in that way.”

He then went to the French Open where he lost to eventual champion Dino Prizmic in the quarter-finals.

But Phillips saw enough to believe Searle had a good chance of a long run at Wimbledon.

“I never had a doubt about his ability, especially after the French Open,” he added. “What we saw out there was very, very strong. The guy he lost to in the quarter-finals is going to be top-100 pretty soon in my opinion.

“So for me Henry was the second best player in that tournament. I think that gave us a lot of confidence.

“But it was getting him to peak for this tournament and we seemed to have got it right. Full credit to him.”

And with that rapid progression through 2023, Phillips says the team will now be forced to ‘go back to the drawing board’.

But Phillips, the head coach at the Lawn Tennis Association’s national academy in Loughborough who has worked with Searle since September, will not make any hasty decisions.

“This makes us go back to the drawing board a little bit,” he said. “When you say that it’s normally not in a positive way, but this is a very unusual ‘back to the drawing board’ situation because we have to reassess the plan and strategy for him going forward.

“Junior tennis is a massive platform going into the men’s game and that’s what I’ve worked in for a good amount of years now, the transition from junior to men’s and making them understand the big journey that’s ahead.

“So there will be definitely an element of him going into the lower tier of professional tennis.

“But also there’s a new system with the junior ranking. If you get top-10 then you get fast tracked into some Challenger events. That’s a big incentive for us as well.”