He admits that his departure could cause a mixed reaction from the club members.
‘I’ve been here five years,’ Giacopelli said.
‘When I first arrived there wasn’t a lot going on, apart from club nights.
The junior programme was disappearing and my remit was to revive it.
I took on a programme for 50 kids, and set myself some goals – and now I feel I have fulfilled them.
The only one not yet fulfilled is winning the men’s national club league and maybe this year we’ll do it.
We’ve got to the finals and we’re in with a shout.’ Giacopelli has certainly brought the junior programme along, and there are dozens of youngsters who are proof of that, but the Peruvian admits that the increased emphasis on the junior section upset some of the long-standing members of the club.
‘People don’t like change, especially when the changes are successful.
Change requires effort and removes the comfort zone.
There are always those who object to it.
I know some members were unhappy that they could no longer just turn up and play when they felt like it because the juniors were using the courts – but junior tennis is the future of any club.’ Giacopelli’s game plan for the men’s National Club league also caused some bad feeling among local tennis fans as players from outside the Island were brought in to play, under the name of the Caesarean Tennis Club, in the matches against the other UK clubs – with the resulting irony that two Jersey-resident players, Ian Morgan and Pieter Theron, have played for a Guernsey club team in the same competition, although in a lower league.
However, Giacopelli was certainly not the only coach in the league who was doing so, with numerous others in the National league recruiting top names for their teams.
Giacopelli dismissed the suggestion that he had been forced out of the club.
‘I have had hassle all along but no-one has pushed me out.
Their behaviour has made me a better man, not a bitter one.
It’s the ones who have hassled me who have to deal with their own consciences and sleep at night! I gave 150 per cent, and will continue to do so in whatever job I do.
I do things properly, or not at all.’ He said that his contract was up for renewal in September and he was offered a new one but chose not to accept it.
‘I would like to stay here but I need a new challenge.
If I stayed with the club I’d just be ticking over.
I’ve enjoyed the successes we’ve had but it’s time to move on or I’ll get stale.’ Giacopelli was approached to coach Catalina Casta-o and over the last couple of months has found that they can work together, and he hopes he can contribute to the future progess of the player.
‘It’ll be a big step, to go and make this work.
I always wanted to move into this arena eventually and the opportunity has presented itself.’ Caesarean’s committee chairman Mark Muhlemann said: ‘The move is Pablo’s choice.
He has achieved everything he set out to do here and I think people will understand that he feels the time has come to move on.
‘The LTA is changing its ideas of what it wants to be done in club tennis, so there will be some changes made to the head coach’s contract.
We’ve advertised for someone with the right qualifications to take over, but we don’t necessarily need a performance coach now.’ ‘I will miss him,’ Muhlemann added.
‘I’ve enjoyed his presence at the club and the changes he’s brought in, and I don’t want the club to go back to the way it was before he came, although I’m sure there will be some who would like nothing better.
But I don’t want to be associated with a club that can’t change – Pablo has made life very interesting for us all!’
