A children’s version of tennis, played with wooden bats, was being offered in many Victorian primary schools instead of the real game up until three years ago.
But long-time head coach of Greenvale and Craigieburn tennis clubs Tim Connelly has managed to convince local schools to offer “tennis hot shots” – a program that teaches children tennis on smaller courts with racquets built for little hands.
Within a five-kilometre radius, 11 schools and tennis clubs now offer the program, largely because of Connelly’s drive to attract children to the game.
Participating schools include Aitken College, and Greenvale, St Carlo Boromeo and Gladstone Park primary schools.
Connelly’s services to tennis were recently recognised when he took out a Tennis Australia award for coaching excellence.
His trot up to the podium to accept the gong closely followed that of rising star Nick Kyrgios, who took out the Newcombe Medal as ‘Australia’s most outstanding tennis player in 2014’.
Connelly’s award capped his 25th year as a tennis coach, but his connection to the Greenvale club stretches back further, to his days as a 10-year-old battling it out on court, hoping one day to make it to the professional circuit.
“I played at a fairly high level against [Jason] Stoltenberg, Wayne Arthur and the like, but I was smart enough to know that if I wanted to make a career out of it I needed to get into coaching or be involved some other way,” the 44-year-old said.
He now runs Complete Tennis and has a team of 15 coaches operating from Greenvale, Craigieburn and Wallan.
Next month they will move to the $8 million Hume Tennis and Community Centre.
