Mini Tennis
The perfect introduction to the sport, Mini Tennis makes tennis accessible to young children aged between 3 and 10 years.
Sessions involve smaller courts and equipment, combined with lower-bouncing balls to help young people to get to grips with the game and develop a love for the sport.
Mini Tennis is split into six stages:
Blue: 4-6 years – Learn the basics
This programme is designed to finesse fine motor skills like balance, agility and coordination. At this stage it’s not about winning or losing but just learning the basics.
Red: 6-8 years – Serve, rally and score
More like the tennis you know, this includes overarm serves, rallies and scoring. Kids use this new knowledge to play in competitions as teams or individuals. It’s still soft balls and small courts but they learn everything they’ll need for the game ahead.
Orange: 8-9 years – Develop a rounded game
The skills they have been learning are developing their tennis game. Now it’s time to bring in tactics, extra techniques, problem-solving and leadership too.
Green: 9-10 years – Test your skills
Moving on to real, full-sized courts, it’s about fine-tuning and refining the techniques they’ve learned over the years.
Yellow: 10+ years – Take your skills further
Playing on full size courts with the balls the professionals use, children continue to explore different game styles and start to find their own. They develop well-rounded motor skills whilst improving physical capacities.
Teaching important skills
All sessions are led by our experienced team of LTA accredited coaches and include age-specific physical development exercises to help injury prevention.
During training, children have practice matches and are taught about fair play. This encourages good behaviour and sportsmanship and helps kids to understand the importance of match conduct and court etiquette.
The coaches will recommend when a child is ready to move to more advanced sessions and competitive levels.
Competition
We believe that competing is the best way to learn and enjoy the full benefits of tennis.
This is important for all playing levels of our programme and we offer everyone competitive opportunities when we can. We are mindful that this has to be done in a fun and supportive environment.
To grow in confidence as their game develops, the following competitive journey is ideal for juniors:
- internal Club matchplays each month for a friendly, relaxed environment to play against friends
- Club friendly matches or team competitions run at a County level
- Winter and Summer County League fixtures for all ball colours
- local external tournaments run by the LTA
We have strong links with Tennis Surrey and once players enjoy success in competition on a regular basis they may be considered for County training or to represent Surrey in County Matches.
Club Championships Red Ball >>
Become a tennis leader
We also offer children over 13 years the opportunity to take the first step on the LTA’s coaching ladder through the LTA Tennis Leaders Programme. This enables youngsters to help and be paid for Mini Tennis and holiday camps.
For juniors of 16 or over, we offer the LTA Level 1 Coaching Assistant qualification which can lead to work as a tennis assistant – it’s a great addition to a CV and useful qualification for gap year employment.
