On Court Get On Court was an event organised between Tennis Coach Stephanie Eadon and Tennis Assistant Amy Hoburn at Virgin Active Wearside and Margie Tweedy from On Court Magazine.
The focus of the event was to get as many year 7 and 8 girls together from Durham High School to take part in a tennis competition called ‘on court get on court’ on Friday 12th April while the National Premiere League was taking place. With both Stephanie and Amy trying to increase the participation of girl’s tennis in the local area, this event was something they were both very excited to be involved in.
The event was sponsored by On Court magazine and without their support and funding the competition would not have been the same. On Court provided all the girls who had taken part with a t-shirt to wear and a Wimbledon key ring. They also provided a number of prizes which included 2 Head Racquets, 2 Head Racquet Bags.
The coaching sessions started at Durham High School by two year 10 girls Nicola Tweedy and Alex Tweddle who were studying for their GCSE P.E Exam. As part of their exam Nicola and Alex were running a girl’s tennis competition so it was great to get them involved. The sessions were delivered in school for three weeks every Thursday lunchtime, with all girls learning the basic techniques and scoring format.
After the three sessions at Durham High School all the girls were invited back to Virgin Active Wearside with Coach Stephanie Eadon and Tennis Assistant Amy Hoburn for two 2 hour sessions, to help the girl’s increase their basic techniques learnt at school, introduce them to both cardio tennis and mini tennis and a chance for the girls to ask any other questions about the event.
10 girls from Durham High School arrived at Virgin Active on Friday 12th April to take on the trio of tennis activities in the ‘On Court Get On Court’ competition. The day started with 30 minutes of cardio tennis to get the girls warmed up, followed up with a short break for refreshments. Cardio tennis was great fun and good to see all the girls taking part. Next we split the girls into two groups to take on mini tennis singles and doubles. Each match was played to a tiebreak to 10, winning by two clear points, each team were awarded the total amount of points won in each of their matches. There were some amazing points played - as anyone knows winning points on a mini red court is hard! The girls battled hard in both groups, in Group 1 Vaniya and Sophie came out on top, with Alex and Laura on top in group 2. At the end of mini tennis the scores were very close with only 10 points splitting all the teams. So there was all to play for in the full court doubles after lunch.
In this part of the competition we put both groups together to play full court doubles. Each pair played a tiebreak to 10 points trying to win as many points possible as the final scores our all so close. We saw some great matches with good understanding of the game, as some of the girls had never played a match before. At the end of the match play the scores were in, this meant the two top teams would play a final to 10 points to win 1st prize 2 Head Racquets and 2nd prize 2 Head Racquet Bags. With 3rd and 4th place playing a tiebreak to 10 points for the 3rd place with the pair winning an hour individual lessons each back at Virgin Active with Coach Stephanie Eadon.
At the end of the competition we got all the girls together for the presentation. We were lucky to be joined by Adam Barraclough, a former world ranked player and who represented Great Britain as a junior and is currently representing Virgin Active Wearside in the National Premiere League Finals. Adam did a fantastic job handing out the prizes, getting photos with the girls and chatting to them all. It was a great to have him there and being able to speak to all the girls and hopefully inspiring them to continue with tennis. Margi Tweedy from On Court who sponsored the event joined in the post event celebrations, which was great for her to see how well her support has helped interest the local girls into tennis.
Congratulations to Laura and Maura Selvarajah on 1st place and Vaniya Moradi and Sophie Sobo well deserved runners up.
Steph and Amy had a fantastic day and Steph said; "it was a great day for girls tennis seeing all the girls taking part in 3 different tennis games they can play for life was amazing." Amy then went on to say; "as well as this it was great to see girls that never took part in tennis before picking up racquet and getting involved for the very first time."