Roger Draper experienced a breathtaking day in the North East February 22nd 2013.
With a full day scheduled, Roger visited a number of places including The Northumberland Club, Sunderland Tennis Centre and then Virgin Active Wearside where he watched the annual Player Plus Competition. The event which was ran by local referee, Andy Berne is like being at the Davis Cup whereby the coaches are on court with their players, giving them advice and guidance along the way. It takes place once a year and the popular feedback for next year is to introduce doubles, which we cannot wait to include!
Following the Player Plus event, Roger's visit continued south down the A19 to Middlesbrough where we were simply blown away by the scale of the multiple events that were happening at the Teesside based Club.
The centre was packed to the rafters with tennis activities from 2pm when we arrived to after 10pm (when the organiser Matthew Jackman finally got home!). The atmosphere was electric and there was a fun touchtennis mixed doubles adult and child competition on the first court. This was for visually impaired players and sighted players. On the next courts down there was a display of performance tennis, which included mini red and orange players along with older juniors being put through their paces.
Roger got involved with all the sessions, which included putting on some SimSpecs (visually impaired glasses) that had been brought down by Jon Bramley from the 'Visual Impairment North East Charity.' Once Roger had put the glasses on he rallied with Megan, who is from local school Kings Academy. Megan has only played tennis once before and was fantastic. Megan loved the event and said to the onlookers that she was going to Tennis World the next day to have another go! We prised Roger off the court and he then went to take a look at the performance sessions being led by Gary Malone, Martin Hodgkinson and Ben Smuk.
What the event really highlighted was the scale of opportunity that tennis has to offer. No matter who you are, what age you are and what you want to achieve tennis can be enjoyed by everyone!
Roger was thrilled by the day,
"Today was a great day in the North East. You realise the diversity of our sport and the huge impact it can have on many people's lives. One of our key focuses is growing participation and this event truly highlighted what our tennis people are achieving to get as many people playing the game as possible."
Parts of the event were covered by local Sky Tyne Tees and can be viewed here.