A group of teachers from rural schools in Ugu District Municipality’s four local municipalities were given a three-day workshop on the basics of tennis at the Umtwentweni Tennis Club recently.
This was part of a programme introduced by Sharon van der Schyss, the president of the Ugu Tennis Association to introduce tennis into these schools.

Schyss said no schools in the outskirts of Umdoni, Umuziwabantu, Umzumbe and Ray Nkonyeni municipalities have tennis courts and therefore learners have no opportunity to play the sports.

“Most of the schools have netball courts and the idea is to introduce and train the teachers on the sport so that they can take the skills back to the learners and start tennis teams at their respective schools,” said Schyss.

She said she has spoken to the Department of Education about plans to convert or make netball courts duo to accommodate both sports so that tennis is recognised in the schools as a very interesting sport.

As part of the workshop, the teachers were introduced to Julia Christiansen, a highly qualified Tennis Coach in the Ugu District.

Christiansen trained the teachers on racket-holding techniques, what the court lines are for, and scoring. Helping her demonstrate was one of her students Hriday Kambaran of Ramsgate who started playing tennis at a very young age and has competed at a professional level.

Despite the wet weather, the training and workshop were a huge success and Schyss said she is hoping that more tennis players and clubs will be started from the training provided, as the south coast only has four tennis clubs.

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