GET YOUR KIT ON: TENNIS:Wimbledon may be over, but that doesn't mean it's time to put your racquet away. With more floodlighting, better courts and lower costs, Emmet Maloneserves up some great reasons to take up tennis
WHILE RAFA Nadal and Serena Williams move out of southwest London and wait for their winners’ cheques to clear, rather less accomplished players across Europe, the US and beyond will continue to get out on courts, car parks or roads trying to recreate the magic they’ve witnessed by their newly acquired tennis heroes.
We all remember experiencing “Wimbledon syndrome”. This was a condition that gripped kids during each summer and resulted in any area of open space, ideally one containing a set of broadly parallel lines, being commandeered to host a tennis match.
Where I lived, the concrete roads, divided into sections by lines of tar, seemed almost designed with that purpose in mind, and for a few weeks each year we would pack in a schedule of matches at least as demanding as the ones faced by the game’s biggest stars in south London and sometimes just as ill tempered.
“Yes, that certainly used to be a common enough phenomenon,” says Tennis Ireland’s chief executive Des Allen, “but we really don’t get it so much now, primarily because tennis has become a year-round sport for an awful lot of people”.
Tennis, Allen admits, was one of the really big winners during the boom time here. Facilities up and down the country were transformed with the help of the Government’s sports capital grants programme.
Part of the reason tennis used to be so seasonal was that a good deal of it was played on grass. That has changed almost completely over the past decade, as better and better synthetic surfaces edged out the real thing at almost every club.
In addition, floodlighting meant courts were usable more of the time. This offered the possibility of a greater return on membership fees at private members’ clubs but it also allowed public authorities and the like to provide much better facilities.
Out of this, almost 35 years ago, sprang the hugely successful Parks Tennis programme, which now, with the support of Shreddies, caters for 26,000 kids each year.
Most of the activity is at this time of the year. It’s easy to see the attraction of having children attend camps that provide high quality daily coaching in a fun atmosphere, at prices starting from €30 a month.
In a highly competitive market, it is hard to imagine that tennis, long seen as a rather middle class pursuit, can be beaten for accessibility.
In recent times, the clubs have been far more proactive, with many implementing the International Tennis Federation’s Play and Stay programme.
“There will always be a boost to numbers at this time of year,” says John McGahon, a former Davis Cup player who now oversees the coaching activities at Dundalk Lawn Tennis Club, “but the Play and Stay programme has been a big help with smaller courts, lighter racquets and less pressurised balls all helping them to get more out of the game from early on.”
The idea is to prevent kids spending most of their time wandering about retrieving balls. It’s an approach that also pays dividends among adult beginners.
McGahon also runs a variety of programmes intended to target would-be adult players. Some programmes, like cardio tennis, prioritise the health and fitness aspect of things over skills development.
Those who simply want to play by the regular rules can go to the open social sessions when members of all abilities can drop by, meet other members and be randomly drawn to play against anyone else who has come along.
“It’s going really well and between everything we’ve seen numbers go up with both kids and adults wanting to join after a positive first experience,” says McGahon.
Lower fees have helped; Dundalk has dropped its entry fee to about €285 per annum for an adult membership.
Although some clubs, particularly in Dublin, still have waiting lists, the hope in Dundalk and elsewhere is that Wimbledon will have worked its magic and have people reaching for their chequebooks. Centre Court may have vanished off our screens but the parks will still be teeming with wannabe stars over the coming weeks.
WHAT THEY SAY:
“The demographic has changed,” says Tennis Ireland’s chief executive Des Allen, “and the sport is probably a broader church than it was previously perceived as being.
“Within the game there’s a sense too that the cost of playing is very low these days, certainly in terms of the bang you get for your buck,” Allen says.
WHAT IT DOES:
“It’s certainly another sport with plenty of physical benefits,” says exercise expert, Dr Giles Warrington of DCU. “Tennis ticks a lot of boxes and if you play it at all regularly you’ll enjoy a significantly lower risk of suffering from cardiovascular disease and benefit from good aerobic fitness.
“If you play two or three times a week you’re meeting the recommended levels of exercise, and it’s the sort of sport where you can get out there and enjoy yourself without even realising that you’re getting a workout.
“Obviously playing singles will involve the burning off more calories than doubles, but simply playing is the important bit.
“It’s a good one too for the great age range involved with the relatively low risk of injury a positive factor when it comes to older people being able to stick with it, return after years away or even take it up for the first time.”
WHAT IT TAKES:
Racquets are the key pieces of equipment and they start at about €15 after which you can spend rather more, well in excess of €100, depending on how serious about it you want to get. Balls are the most obvious requirement and they most commonly range from just €2.50 for a pack of three to about four times that.
Specialist footwear for kids tends to range between €25 and €50, with adults’ shoes coming in at roughly twice that.
Coaching at clubs can cost as little as €5 per session in a group, with the price for individual lessons depending to a considerable extent on the instructor.
WHERE IT’S AT:
Tennis Ireland at tennisireland.ie provides a list of clubs and other useful links, while parkstennis.com has details of the summer camps taking place at some 160 venues up and down the country.
