Tennis clubs open up to guests
Weekend Open Days coincide with Wimbledon
Comparison to UK ‘street’ approach
The second AIG National Tennis Day takes place across Ireland this Saturday, July 6th, timed to coincide with the peak weekend of interest in the sport as the Wimbledon Championships come to a conclusion.
Last year’s event saw 60 clubs opening their gates to allow access to courts for guests and resulted in an estimated 3,000 people experiencing the sport in some cases for the first time and for more as a return having played it before and drifted away.
The sport pitches itself as being one where facilities are very good, with half of all clubs having benefitted from Sports Capital Grant funding in recent rounds, and which can be played throughout a lifetime being equally accessible to children and those of advanced years.
The events at each club are organised locally and will range this weekend from face painting and fun games to exhibition matches featuring the best of local club talent and Irish international stars like Conor Niland who will be playing in Dundalk and who is the AIG National Tennis Day ambassador for 2013.
AIG’s participation in the event is a boost for Tennis Ireland which also lists BNP Paribas as a major sponsor of its National Academy. The company which is a major sponsor of sport around the world cam eon board earlier this year as Tennis Ireland’s Official insurance partner and the National Tennis Day will prove a useful vehicle for promoting that association.
Tennis Ireland has chosen to focus on clubs while in Britain the emphasis has been more on reaching out to young people through the rolling out of ‘pop up’ tennis facilities in local areas where tennis may never have been seen as a viable or likely sport to play.
That initiative is being run by charity StreetGames and supported by Sport England and the English Lawn Tennis Association. It has drawn sponsorship by tennis equipment brand Head and has 42 centres being created and running through the summer.
It wil be interesting to monitor the more confined but likely more sustainable approach in Ireland to the UK approach which may unearth a fresh talent to take up the surge in interest caused by the success of players like Andy Murray and Laura Robson.
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AIG Supporting National Tennis Day
