THE Broken Hill Tennis Club was without any junior players last year but that’s all changes.
With the help of returning coach and junior co-ordinator Russel Power, the club has seen about 25 new players join the region’s league in the junior division.
“They just didn’t have anyone to co-ordinate the juniors the last few years,” Power said. “So the juniors couldn’t play.”
Power said he’d always been a member of the local tennis community but spent many years away from Broken Hill, and recently when returning he was approached by the club to coach and co-ordinate juniors and help get kids could get back on court.
He said providing young people a physical and social outlet was an important part of the sport.
“We’ve got kids that come from troublesome home lives, and when they come off the court, I never ask them the result because I don’t care,” Power said.
“I ask them did you have fun? Did you try your hardest? Did you show respect?
“Part of our ethos is that we don’t care if they become a good tennis player, we care if they become a good person.”
Power said encouraging them to open up and earning their trust encourages them to continue to play the sport.
He also said making sure players don’t pin themselves to the result but enjoy the game is a good life lesson he tried to instil in his teaching.
“We want to train a mental toughness in these kids, so it’s not result driven, it’s process driven,” Power said.
The tennis coach is currently trying to arrange a junior tennis championship for the club, which he said hasn’t happened in several years.
Power is also in the process of learning more about accessibility on the court, so that the club can one day offer modified tennis for vision, intellectually and physically impaired people.
