The Wey Valley Tennis Centre celebrates its second year anniversary this month. The tennis centre, which is the only one of its kind between Bournemouth and Exeter has seen an excellent second year with over 13,000 people visiting the centre for Tennis tournaments, competitions, coaching sessions, after school sessions and general pay and play tennis.
Rob Cole, Finance & Business Manager at the Wey Valley School & Sports College added ‘ this represents a 45% increase in visitors from year 1 and with nearly 10,000 tennis court hours played in the centre since January 2011, the centre is proving to be a valuable community and sporting hub.
This view has been supported by James Deem, regional tennis development officer for Dorset and Somerset. Mr Deem said ‘It’s great to Wey Valley in such a healthy state after two years. The centre provides superb playing opportunities and has been core to the provision of tennis in West Dorset, allowing local people to access tennis all year round, whatever the weather”
Mr Cole, added’ there has been a particular focus on coaching programmes, engaging with the community and local tennis clubs for pay and play tennis and more recently hosting a number of Lawn Tennis Association regional tournaments. The centre is open to anyone who wishes to pick up a racket and play an hour of tennis under the roof’.
A recent development for the tennis centre is a new twitter account @WEYVALLEYTENNIS, which will keep followers informed of free court space, special offers and updates on new tennis programmes at the centre. Court bookings can be made through the Tennis office, managed by the Redlands Community Sports Hub on 01305 340122 and court prices from January have been held at £10 per court hour.
Julien Lawes, who coaches at the centre and is Head Coach at Weymouth Tennis Club added ‘that the Weymouth Tennis Club runs group sessions at the centre and is only one of two clubs in Dorset that have managed to reach performance club status from the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA)’ . Mr Lawes also noted ‘The Weymouth Tennis Club would not have been able to reach this status without the Wey Valley Tennis Centre indoor facilities. The LTA performance status allows the club and the tennis centre to deliver extremely high standard tennis programme for performance players.’
With the New Year here, Mr Lawes also runs an Adult Cardio Tennis session on Monday evening at 8pm-9pm costing £5 per session. There are also fantastic opportunities for Juniors (age 4 to 18) to access group coaching sessions throughout the week at the centre. Julien can be contacted at jlawestennis@hotmail.com or 07857758395.