Session Structure

Competitive play in a fun, social environment.
Which sums up what we aim to deliver in all of our sessions.

Tennis

Our tennis sessions are mostly doubles matches played in a variety of formats.

The sessions begin with a 10 minute "knock - up" which models the warm up routine used by players from club standard to professional. Before matchplay begins, there is a competitive warm up phase during which players play half court matches of 2 or 3 points. The winner stays on and is "challenged" by the the next player. This is an opportunity to hit lots of balls with a variety of shots, including serve, and to warm up muscles without needing to "explode" into action right away.

During this phase (15 to 20 minutes), the coach can assess players with a view to pairing them appropriately during the main phase of the session.

The sessions then move into the main phase of play.  The coach will pair players for their first match and allocate them to a court.  The match format will depend on how many players there are on a given day, but will take the form of best of 5 or 7 games (also referred to as "short sets").

At most sessions the coach will be assisted by a volunteer to help ensure smooth running.

Badminton

The phases follow the tennis example in that there will be a warm-up phase during which players will do a variety of warm-up exercises and drills.

Players are then grouped according to their playing standard and a series of doubles and singles matches are played.
Each group will have a winner, and, sometimes, we have prizes.

Faye usually finds finds time to play "Around the World" which is very popular with the players.

As with tennis, we will usually try to have a volunteer present to help with organisation.