Free Follow on Tennis Opportunities 2023

News and Stories by Nino Severino

The Tennis Road Shows in Ipswich, our home base has been such an incredible success story, for many of the young people who travel through the support system of the foundation, this is how it all begins. We work tirelessly to ensure that we have outstanding relationships with the primary schools in our network, and back this up with high quality communication and management of the sessions.

Teachers are incredibly busy professionals, their working hours are long, as a team we have witnessed this for ourselves, this is why we ensure that the process from our end is highly organised, keeping the delivery of our school visits as simple and easy as possible from a school’s point of view.

Our aim when we visit the schools is to ensure that as many pupils as possible fall in love with the game of tennis, and that they go home with their invitation from us wanting to attend a follow-on opportunity. It’s very important that once the children experience the fun and enjoyment of tennis, they then have an opportunity to begin to travel along a pathway that can provide more tennis, at the level they want to play. Our invitations asks for the parents to contact us to book onto the free follow on session, its normal for me to have a very strong booking list, so we are always ready for very big numbers.

It's important that the children and the parents and guardians feel welcomed and comfortable as soon as they arrive at the venue where the session will be held. Our team will always receive our tennis guests with open arms and big smiles, we want everyone who attends these sessions to feel as if they are joining a tennis family. It’s very important that all the children feel very relaxed, we want them all to enjoy this experience as much as possible, as a team we know that it will be this session experience that could take these children on a very exciting journey in sport.

As soon as the children arrive at the venue, we want them all to have fun, and see tennis as a potential sport for them to join. We always try to ensure that children who have been through our programme, and at an age where they can be tennis assistants attend these sessions to show how tennis can affect lives and add such positivity. These assistants help in the delivery of the drills, but they also give a tennis display, I always feel very proud to say that the players the parents and children are watching, were once ex actly at this point in the journey, exactly like you, starting their tennis life at a free follow-on session, and look at them now! Showcasing their personal development through tennis fills me with so much pride and is without doubt one of the highlights of the session.

It’s important for me to always finish the session talking to the parents, ensuring they understand the benefits of their children joining our wonderful world of tennis. As a foundation we want to offer support to all the parents of the children we introduce to tennis. We want them to be clear on the pathways on offer, recreational, fun and enjoyment only, or a journey of elite aspiration where their child will experience the life of a young athlete, and all the character-building process that this will deliver in terms of the culture and environment of sport. The end of every follow on free session fills all our team with excitement, simply because when you look out on a sea of little faces, you never know what the future intennis will hold for them, some maybe achieving a level of a few of our players, and representing Great Britain at a junior level on the international stage, with others joining the coaching team, and giving back to those who we will be introduced to tennis in the future.