9 hours ago
York tennis club serves up free sessions to get more children playing
A YORK tennis club is serving up a summer of free sessions to encourage the city's next generation of players.
With Wimbledon fever growing ahead of the main action starting next Monday 30 June, Rowntree Park Tennis Club is hosting events in a bid to give more young people a taste of the sport without any cost.
Volunteers from the club are helping to run two mornings of tennis competitions for a total of 90 girls from secondary and primary York schools over the next two Fridays (June 27 and July 4).
Rowntree Park Tennis Club is also offering two hours of free and supervised tennis to boys and girls, aged 10 to 14, every Thursday, from 4pm to 6pm, until the end of August.
Ian Bews, who has been secretary at the club for four years, said the free activities were part of its 2025 campaign to get more youngsters on the courts without cost being a barrier to playing.
The club has purchased rackets and balls for the children to use and secured a grant from the Lawn Tennis Association to cover the coaching costs.
Club coach, Jill Le Pla, has been delivering 10 hours of free tennis coaching in Millthorpe School, All Saints School, Westfield Primary and Hob Moor Primary.
Tennis coach Jill Le Pla, centre, who is providing coaching sessions in York. (Image: Submitted)Ian said: 'The benefits are fresh air and exercise, building friendships with children from other schools, developing social skills and receiving tennis coaching.
'Schools struggle to offer tennis because of the facilities required and the necessary specialist knowledge required to coach it. Tennis is often only accessible to children whose parents can afford to pay for court hire, or membership, and expensive equipment.
'The club's objective for 2025 is to blow away these barriers and get lots of kids playing tennis at our club and playing at zero cost to them in weekly junior club sessions. We hope that they will become tennis players for life either at our club or elsewhere.'
Ian said the club was particularly keen to get girls involved as there was often a drop in numbers involved in sport on reaching secondary school.
'As a club we need a pipeline of future members to keep the club going. We also want a younger input in matches. Hopefully, the juniors will develop over the coming years and play in our teams.
'More importantly it is about bringing the park alive. Those courts are pretty quiet mid-week so we thought why don't we offer them free for children to play.
'It is fabulous from our point of point to have kids playing, particularly girls. Ladies' teams at many clubs struggle to get players. In our club, for very four men in the club there's one lady. We are trying to balance out that gender difference.'
Aware that youngsters might be accompanied to sessions by grandparents, the club committee purchased and fitted a defibrillator earlier this year in case of a coronary emergency – the next nearest defibrillator was on Bishopthorpe Road.
The club leases the six tennis courts in Rowntree Park from City of York Council and has full responsibility for their maintenance. Three courts are available for the public to hire, and the other three are for exclusive use by the 200 club members.
For information about the Thursday sessions, visit the club website here or email Jill Le Pla at jlptenniscoaching@
