South Somerset hopes to serve up the next Andy Murray! (From Yeovil Express)

South Somerset hopes to serve up the next Andy Murray!

10:32am Monday 27th April 2009 in News By Steve Sowden

SOUTH Somerset is one step closer to producing the next Andy Murray after securing £5,000 towards developing young tennis talent.

The Awards for All grant will be used to bring hundreds of seven and eight year olds from 38 local primary schools onto tennis courts to play ‘Mini Red Tennis’ - a junior version of the sport.

Introductory sessions with local professional tennis coaches have already been organised in each primary school to give young players the chance to demonstrate their skills and commitment, and those with the right level of enthusiasm and ability will then be given a further five-week coaching course opportunity to help develop their skills.

The money has been awarded to the district’s tennis development group - which was set up in 2006 by the council and has representatives, coaches and volunteer members from nine tennis clubs across the district, the Lawn Tennis Association and the South East Somerset School Sports Partnership.

This grant is in addition to funding received from the Tennis Foundation, an organisation that promotes tennis within schools.

The council’s senior sports development officer, Jake Hannis, said: “Hundreds of young people will be given another valuable sports opportunity, and a new door has been opened for those who want to take it further.

“As a district council, one of our aims is to help get more and more people involved in sport each year.

“Since we formed the tennis development group three years ago, it has come a long way and have organised numerous events, tournaments and have got many more people into the sport.

“We are pleased they have been awarded this funding as to give more young people the opportunity to access tennis - the group is really making headway.”

Senior competition manager from the South East Somerset Schools Partnership, Graham Norris, said: “We hope that by bringing school and community tennis together we can ensure the children have a very positive experience of visiting local club facilities, so that they will be inspired to take the game further.

“We have planned various ‘cluster’ finals for June with a final team based competition held at Martock Tennis Club during National School Sports Week on July 2.”

Peter Lewis, secretary of the South Somerset Tennis Development Group, added: “We are extremely grateful to both Awards for All and the Tennis Foundation for funding this project.

“The Tennis Development Group is making real progress and we all look forward to seeing what sort of difference this joined up approach will make and to watching some bright new tennis stars emerge from South Somerset.”

More information on South Somerset District Council’s sport development can be found by clicking on the link in our "related articles" section on this page of our website.