Tennis coach Adrian Moll says there must be something in the water in Maidstone in light of the town’s sporting success stories over the years.

Maidstone Tennis Academy, where Moll is director of tennis, continue to fly their flag for Kent’s county town with a raft of high achievers.

He can also point to football, including Maidstone United’s FA Cup heroics last season and Alessia Russo’s European Championship glory with England, while, going back, Jon Harley played in the Premier League for Chelsea and Fulham.

Maidstone has also never had it so good in boxing, with the town boasting a pair of British, Commonwealth and European champions in Sam Noakes and Dennis McCann, and an English champion in Sean Noakes.

Moll also cites Pegasus Gymnastics Club and their work in producing the likes of James Hall, who has competed on Olympic, Commonwealth, world and European stages.

And not forgetting former Maidstone Grammar School for Girls pupil Lizzy Yarnold, who won back-to-back skeleton gold medals at the Winter Olympics.

“I always joke that there’s something in the water in Maidstone,” said Moll.

“You look at how well we’ve done as a town down the years and Maidstone’s quite famous for producing all these sportsmen and women.

“I’m sure lots of little towns have the same stories but we may as well sing loud about ours.”

Maidstone Tennis Academy, based at Freedom Leisure, are certainly doing their bit.

Their men’s first team are county champions again after winning the LTA National Club League, and at the weekend Jack Fryer, Stephen Blythe, Seb Kay and Ethan Grant won a play-off against Sussex champions Weald to reach the Regional League.

That will see them take on the likes of the high-profile Queen’s Club in London, who host the traditional Wimbledon warm-up tournament.

The Maidstone men’s captain is teenager Jack Berry, who’s currently away playing an international tournament in Ghana, while Saha Kapilasena has just won the Under-16 Sri Lankan National Championships.

Kapilasena’s success puts him in line for a Junior Davis Cup spot.

The senior ladies - Jane Gentle, Sally Holmes, Caroline Griffiths and Linda McSorely - were national champions in the 55 and over category and represented Great Britain at the European Club Championships.

The club have also landed eight county titles this summer and, over the years, 30 Maidstone Tennis Academy youngsters have earned US scholarships.

The club are punching well above their weight in terms of size.

“Sometimes I think we take it for granted and then suddenly we think, ‘Hang on, we’re this little club in Maidstone achieving all this success’,” said Moll.

“We’ve got five courts, 100 adult members and 175 kids.

“For the last 10 years maybe we’ve always won the Kent title and the clubs we’re beating are 15, 16, 20-court clubs with 1,000 members.

“We run such a small programme in comparison but we seem to over-achieve all the time.

“Because the culture of the club is so good, over the years, we’ve had three guys play for Great Britain, four national champions, 30 kids have gone off on American scholarships and we’re always asked how do you do that?

“It’s because it’s such a friendly and hardworking club that we’ve managed to do that.

“We put kids into the team. I suppose because we’re such a small club, we play to that, so all our adult members would know every single one of our kids.

“It’s like a family and we can do that because the club is so small. If we had a huge club, maybe it wouldn’t be so successful.

“It’s not about the coaching, it’s more about the culture and the environment and the friendliness of the club.”