By Contributor Helen Jackson
Play tennis FOR FREE in Nottingham – no court, hitting partner or even your own racquet required! Practice your tennis whenever you want!
With the Easter holidays fast approaching, many parents will be searching for free activities to keep the kids healthy and active in the great outdoors. If you’re lucky enough to live in Nottingham the answer is simple. Time to find out if you or your kids have what it takes to be the next Andy Murray or Roger Federer! It all starts with the wall – a REBO wall to be precise. Two REBO walls have been permanently installed in Nottingham in these locations:
Southglade Park Multi-Use Games Area
Forest Recreation Ground outside Homemade Café (yummy hot chocolate and ice creams for afters!!)
Queens Walk Recreation Ground by the bowling green
You can borrow racquets and balls on site – just ask at the Homemade café, Southglade Leisure Centre or the Queens Walk pavilion.
The REBO walls are angled, creating a realistic arc to the rebounded ball and have been endorsed by professionals (including Judy Murray and Sky TV’s Mark Petchey) as an excellent way to introduce children to tennis.
But don’t just leave all the fun to the kids – hitting a ball against the REBO wall provides a great cardio workout and you could burn up to 500 calories an hour so it’s great exercise!
Almost all the great tennis players began their careers hitting balls against a wall. Roger Federer himself posted a picture (funnily enough on his Facebook ‘wall’) showing him standing in front of a wall at his local tennis club in Basel which he ‘hit against for hours and hours’ when he was young and ‘just starting to play tennis’. Former world number one and Australian Open champion, Victoria Azarenka, who will play in this years AEGON Open Nottingham, has also spoken of spending hours hitting a ball against a wall while she imagined herself playing in a big arena. Sampras, McEnroe, Navratilova, Connors, Lendl, the Williams sisters – they all grew up practising their shots against a wall.
You vs. the wall:
Choose a target on the wall and work on your accuracy and control.
Practise your volleys and half-volleys.
Practise your groundstrokes. Try alternating between your forehand and backhand. As you get better you can add topspin and backspin to increase the challenge.