We Are Tennis Pathways Recreational versus Performance

We Are Tennis Pathways

 

There are two pathways your child can take when learning tennis:

• Recreational
• Performance

Recreational

Recreational is exactly what you would expect.  This is about instilling a lifelong love of tennis, fitness and social connection.  Tennis is a sport that you can play throughout a lifetime.  Taking the Recreational pathway certainly doesn’t mean you can’t play matches or tournaments and be competitive (if you so choose!).

We Are Tennis is accredited to run Hot Shots, an age-appropriate program that is all about learning tennis through play.  We start off with smaller courts, and racquets and tennis balls with lower compression to make them easier to hit. We Are Tennis has integrated its’ own teaching philosophies within the program to provide an unique learning experience.

As you child gets older, they can progress through the different stages of the Hot Shots program, and if they wish, play matches with other students and receive private lessons.

At around 9 years of age, they can also choose to play association competitions and get involved with intra club match play.

There are so many opportunities to be involved.  At this level, we recommend 1-2 sessions per week plus competition.  You are always welcome to talk to our coaches about getting involved in everything that is on offer.

The great thing about We Are Tennis is that if your child starts out enjoying the recreational aspect, but then wants to move to a performance pathway, We Are Tennis has the structure and the coaching team for them to take their tennis to the next level.

A little bit more about the Performance pathway and what’s involved is below.

Performance

The performance pathway is a much larger time commitment, and we recommend 2-10 sessions per week PLUS competition and off court fitness.

This pathway is by invitation and will include discussions with your coach and the senior team at We Are Tennis.

At the performance level, your child would have already progressed through Red, Orange and Green Ball stages of our Hot Shots program, and be ready for Yellow balls!

They would then be invited to join our Junior Squad which would take them through to around 11 years old. Then from 11-18 they would progress to our High Performance Squad.

Squad provides students with the professional tuition and the court time to progress towards to maximise their game.  Squad is overseen by Sean Wilkeson, our Director and Senior Coach with over 25 years experience and has coached players to the International Professional Tour level.

You must attend a minimum of 2 squad sessions per week.

Squad can be undertaken at the same time as private or semi private lessons, intra club play, inter-club competition, Association competition, Junior Development Series, Super 10’s, Junior and Premier Signature Series, ITF junior events, nationals age championships and pennant.  We Are Tennis provides ongoing support to navigate what is available.

Helpful Links:

https://www.tennis.com.au/leagues/super-10s/victoria

https://www.itftennis.com/en/itf-tours/world-tennis-tour-juniors/

https://www.tennis.com.au/vic/competitiveplay

https://www.tennis.com.au/vic/competitiveplay/tournaments-and-events