Junior Coaching
The Elms Junior Tennis Programmes
Mini tennis is designed for children aged between 3 and 10 years utilising smaller courts, nets and rackets as well as lower-bouncing tennis balls to develop vital tennis skills and techniques.
The idea behind the programme is to allow the children to develop using the varying equipment and provides them with the perfect opportunity to learn the fundamentals of tennis at an early age.
The Mini Tennis groups are as follows:
Classes are 45 minutes duration and will use smaller rackets and red balls which are 75% slower than yellow balls. Sessions will focus on lots of games that work on the primary fundamentals – agility, balance and co-ordination as well as teaching the basic skills, learning how to hold a racket and gently pushing/hitting the ball.
Classes are 1 hour duration. Players should use 17” – 23” rackets and will play on the mini courts with red balls. Sessions will have a 10-15 minute warm up, focusing on the primary fundamentals required to play tennis – agility, balance, co-ordination and speed. The session will then focus heavility on the technique of the groundstrokes, volleying and serve and return and introducing match play.
Mini Tennis Orange is a great way for players to continue their progress and is played with shorter rackets (23”-25”), softer balls and courts are bigger and wider than the red stage but still smaller than full-size tennis courts allowing players to develop a rounded games whilst learning a range of techniques and tactics.
It is the next stage before playing on a full-sized court and helps players develop different shots and tactics. An orange is used which is 50% slower than a yellow ball, giving players better control at this important stage of development.
Green group is played on a full size tennis court with bigger rackets (25”-26”) and balls which are a little softer than yellow balls and are 25% slower. It is the next stage before moving on to full compression yellow balls and helps players develop and improve all aspects of their game.
Played on a full size court with a yellow ball. This is where players will use all the techniques learnt previously and will start to introduce tactical intentions when they play.