John Allen, Founder

Tennis is a sport which can be enjoyed for a lifetime, with improvement possible at any stage. This is largely its global and universal appeal which has seen numbers in the UK grow rapidly since 2019 to a record 9 million players in 2024, only surpassed by the United States.

(International Tennis Federation, Global Tennis Report 2024)

Portrait photo of TennisOx Founder John Allen

My love of tennis started at the age of 12 when with friends we would spend summers on village grass courts in Dorset and enter tournaments. Soon we would visit the Wimbledon Championships admiring the level achieved by professionals like Bjorn Borg and Chris Evert. Later, my work as a CFO took us to London, Auckland, Tokyo and Dublin where I would always join a local tennis club finding an instant welcome through shared enjoyment.

In 2020, retirement from business afforded me time to play more club tennis in Oxford and visit the newly opened Mouratoglou Tennis Centre in the idyllic Peloponnese. I am also fortunate to regularly attend the Queens Championship, Roland Garros, and Italian Open. Each Spring with the same group of friends we visit the Cote D’Azur for the Monaco Masters, staying in Beaulieu-Sur-Mer where we play tennis early morning, visit the tournament and socialise informally afterwards, or simply relax in private.

In short, I have a genuine lifelong love, understanding and enjoyment of tennis. Forming TennisOx felt like a natural next step. Be reassured however, I am well balanced with other interests including family travel, occasional Ionian sailing, Reformer Pilates and Oxford where we settled.

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